Connections
by freefallinginlove
Summary: When it's all over, Bonnie begins to lose herself - to waste away and forget every reason to go on. Damon relies on her - but will he realise that their connection might be all they have? Bonnie/Damon
1. All We Are

_**Disclaimer: Own? Me? No.**_

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**Enjoy. I'm not entirely sure of what you'll make of it, but enjoy. **

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_One: All we are_

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She wore headphones; turned up all the way so that the voices would leave her alone, the mindless noise of... _she stopped, checked the song, smiled and turned the volume up just a little louder... _'McFly' making them so much quieter than before.

Bonnie spent her time curled up in black and once red pyjamas, turned pink through time, because time faded everything and anything. Time stole colour and left both pyjamas and memories slightly less alive and vibrant, slightly darker, duller. She stood from the lotus position – the position she retreated into when she needed to concentrate – and moved slowly towards the kitchen, hoping for a full kettle and a good, strong coffee.

She always went for coffee in the middle of the night – it kept her awake, kept her alert, and stopped the screaming. Sleep was a novelty now, because stress and worry, panic and fear had left her awake and unable to dream, fearing everything, sure of nothing because she didn't _know_ what was going to come next. No matter how psychic she was, the supernatural was something she could hardly begin to predict. If she even wanted to.

There could be good – for, she had found there was good in everyone, everything, _even Damon. _With his kind smiles and carefully guarded words... or there could be bad. By bad, at least in this contest, she wanted whoever was listening to think of the worst thing in the world, add bananas, vomit and truckloads of other bad things on top, multiply it by thirteen and then wonder how they'd gotten into such a mess in the first place. It was probably three times as bad as any scenario they could come up with, anyway. Reality always was worse than anything the imagination dared to conjure.

In the end, she sat on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs and staring out of the window at the darkness of the night, punctuated only occasionally by the specks of light which hardly qualified as streetlamps. In the momentary lull where one song transitioned into another on the hard-drive of her iPod, she half-expected to hear a shriek in the night and want to throw herself into action, to begin to save the day in the way that only she could.

Only she couldn't.

Bonnie McCullough was alone in the world, and nobody cared but her. Elena had Stefan, and that was as predictable as hell – because when Damon had been returned to his human state, his thirst and lust for Elena's blood and body were gone, which meant that Stefan no longer possessed a rival. Meredith had left the country to find Alaric – he had been in Germany, studying the witches of the Black Forest, and had asked her to join him.

_So much for best friends. So much for the Velociraptor Sisterhood._

Then there was Matt – Mutt Honeybutt, as she and Damon had taken to calling him. He was there, of course, but having worked so hard to clear his name, having been so afraid of going to jail for something that was not his fault, he had self imposed a ban on women. He was hardly gay, but he just felt that if he could go six months, a year without a girl... _she had read it as 'without Elena'_... he would be able to return to normality.

So even he refused to return her calls.

Which left just one person. The one person she had thought –_ hoped _– would understand. Damon Salvatore had avoided her like the bubonic plague since he had turned human. Sure, Bonnie had made jokes – jokes that would have made any man mad – but damnit, she had _helped _him. She had reignited the sparks of humanity in him when he had literally forgotten how to breathe, reminded him how to function in a normal society.

Hell, for nearly three months, she had made him breakfast, lunch and dinner, and taken it to him at the Boarding House. And he ignored her. He hadn't thanked her; hadn't even spoken to her. He just sat there and ate every last morsel as though it was the last thing he would ever eat, and she provided a silent kind of company which meant that while he sat and ate, she had to sit there and take it.

Then he retreated to his room, and she took it upon herself to leave. Leave to return home, put her headphones on, turn them up and allow herself to waste away. It was an existence... but really? What kind of existence was that?

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Sleep was a luxury, she decided, and, as she cradled her coffee in her hands, feeling the quiet sounds of whatever-the-hell band was playing soothingly in her ears, she wondered whether she could afford the harsh dreams and terrifying memories which bombarded her when her subconscious took over.

It didn't matter whether she wanted it or not. She had not slept for three days, and it was finally catching up with her, in every movement that took twice as long to execute, in the way that she had nearly poured boiling water over her wrist instead of into the shaking mug of coffee that she was holding in her other hand.

Her eyes slowly slid shut as she gazes into the settled darkness. Her head dropped forward, to stare straight at the floor. She was under the grip of a sleep so deep that even pouring the scalding coffee down her leg would not wake her. Her hands fell forward, tilting the mug as her legs swung back and forth and that was all that was left.

Scalding hot coffee and fitful sleep.

Why was it then, when she woke the next morning, lying flat under the duvet of her bed and clad only in her bra and panties, she realised that her sleep had been everything _but _fitful. No dreams had plagued her, no thoughts had worried her. She had simply _slept_.

She could barely remember the night before, though, as she sat up, dragging her leg across cotton sheets which were fairly aged and quite rough because of her overuse of starch when she did the laundry, but comfortable because she was used to them, a shooting pain slid through her skin like electricity on a wire.

Looking at it left her more confused than ever before. Burned and a little bit blistered, looking scalded and sore, her leg was going to be near unusable for a good few hours. She could find some things to fix it in her store cupboard, she knew, but today? Today felt as though it should be one of _those _days.

_One of the days which was spent trying to forget. _

She picked herself up from the bed, found her way to the shower, stumbling, mumbling, groaning, and hell... _she was crying. She hadn't cried in a long time. _Her head hurt, her eyes sore, but the tears would not stop as she turned the faucet on and let the hot water rush over her, plastering her curly hair to her back and soaking her body through.

At a half-past-eight, she pulled her sneakers on, and walked down the street to the bakery, smelling the sweet scent of fresh bread and sugar and flour all the way down the block. Eight dollars later, she had enough to feed Damon for a good week, and enough to feed herself for two.

She was small. She didn't need to eat a lot. She didn't need to spend a lot.

It was nearly nine when she made it to the Boarding House. Everything was quiet, and everything was still, just as she had expected, and she raised her hand to knock only seconds before she nearly jumped out of her skin

She hadn't anticipated the sound of heavy footsteps from the overhang above the porch, she hadn't expected a shadow to fall over the glass, and then, as she pressed herself up to the heavy oak door, petrified about the thought of a supernatural intruder, she had not expected Damon Salvatore to lower himself from said overhang, his long fingers clinging onto the wood for just a little longer than she had expected, because he hadn't realised the drop to be so far.

"You scared me." She found her voice eventually, her eyes wide and flickering to every avenue out of the situation that she could see.

"I-I didn't mean to." And his eyes dropped to the floor, just slightly to the left of her shoes. "I'm sorry." And she found herself biting her lip to stop smiling.

"It's okay." _And for once, it was. Because after the pandemonium of the Dark Dimension, it was this sort of interaction that made her smile. _"I brought breakfast."

"You know," He said suddenly, as she let herself into the Boarding House, just as she did every day, and would continue to do until they ended this silent arrangement, "You don't have to keep doing this,"

She stopped. Everything stopped, because this was the only routine keeping her sane. _Empty, yes, of course she was empty... but she was sane. _Her gaze turned to his, quickly and sharply, and she could see in his face that the words that had come out weren't what they were supposed to be.

"I mean..." She held up her hand and thrust the bread at him, before turning on her heel.

_She could not take another day of routine to have it broken._ _She would not place her heart in his hands and have him turn her away. _

The quiet thump of the bread, still warm but entirely discarded on the floor, made Bonnie's steps falter, but not nearly as quickly as the sounds of heavy footsteps did. Strong hands – ones which had been stronger in another life, wrapped themselves around her shoulders and he pulled her back, effectively stopping her short little tantrum and cementing her to the spot.

"Excuse me. I think I had something to say?" His voice was soft, dangerous velvet in her ears, his breath hot against her cheek as he leaned over her shoulder.

"You said it." Bonnie muttered before the tears had the chance to trip from the space between her lips. "You've said all I need to hear."

"But I haven't said all _I_ wanted to say." And with firm hands still gripped tight on her shoulders, Damon steered her back into the house, closed the door behind them and, finally, released her. "Let _me_ make _you_ breakfast, for once, will you?"

"Why?"

"Because that way, I can keep you here and we can talk."

"You've never talked over breakfast before."

"Neither have you."

She stopped, she thought about it, and she let herself smile, because she realised then, that that was all they had been waiting for. The other one to talk. Typical.

She closed her eyes and let herself nod.

"If you need help, just ask, okay?" She said, as he indicated she should sit at the breakfast counter in the centre of the kitchen as he had done so many times before. She pulled her jacket from her shoulders as she spoke, and, like a child at school, hooked it over the back of the chair, leaning back against it.

"I never even asked you that did I?" He looked at her very quickly, glancing over his shoulder and frowning slightly. She wasn't sure if it was at her, or her words. "I can cook bacon, you know." She nodded quietly and watched him slowly attempt to force the gas-stove to work, so that he could run a burner and get it hot enough to make the bacon cook right. The ignition clicked once, twice, three times and yet there was no spark, "This damn thing never works when I want it to!" He drew his foot back and went to kick it.

"No!" Bonnie shook her head and threw her hand up to stop him, even though she knew he wouldn't see, "Don't kick it!" Because, knowing their luck, the first time his foot connected with it, it would explode. She rounded the counter and braced her hands on his forearms before he could blink. "Here." She closed her eyes and focussed what power she could into letting the burner spark into life.

"Thank you." He nodded, still not looking at her, his eyes taking in the view through the window that she had stared at, hoping for some kind of sound, every morning for the past three months.

She leaned away from him, releasing his forearms to rest her palms against his shoulders, and stupidly pressing her forehead against his sweater, taking in a long sniff of his scent before she nervously shoved her hands into her pockets and walked away.

"I'm an idiot." He muttered, still staring out at the vista of the Old Wood in front of the house. "You know that?"

_She didn't want to speak, but her mouth overtook her mind._

"No, Damon. You're _different_. Not an idiot at all."

"I can't even work a damn stove." There was pain in his voice. "Do you know how that makes me feel?" Bonnie wondered whether he wanted an honest answer, or someone to sympathise with him, or... she didn't know. _How was she supposed to know? She never knew with Damon._

"I don't." Once again, it was the mouth, not the mind which spoke first. "I'm assuming unadjusted, unwell, utterly afraid..."

"And so many other things beginning with 'U'," He muttered tiredly, his eyes betraying the smile he was trying to hide. "You should be a teacher, Bonnie."

She let out a laugh and he watched her eyes darken just a little way. He could not quite tell whether it was sadness or whether it was something else, but damn, it hurt. It hurt even just to see it.

"Me? A teacher?" She let out a harsh bark of laughter, and her head dropped into her hands, "Damon, thanks to our sojourn to the Dark Dimension, I didn't even finish high school."

Damon stopped as she said the words, his hands hovering over the tongs and the handle of the pan. One short glance at her face, and though her tone was unnaturally bright, sunny and happy, he could tell that she was more than torn up inside about the entire thing. She was hurting, and yet she had never let it show.

"You never-"

"I haven't slept more than two nights in seven over the past four months, Damon." He stared once again, and watched as she curled her own hands over her shoulders, "Funny, but that kind of insomnia doesn't help your grade point average."

"I'm sorry, Bonnie." He whispered, still staring at the bacon and hoping that she understood that the prospect of no future was one that he was very, very used to. "I hope you know that."

"Of course." She nodded, "But sorry doesn't matter. I wouldn't take any of it back." She stopped again, and looked up at him. "Elena's happy, Stefan's happy," She ran a hand through hair that was still damp, curly and utterly unruly, "Merry's happy, Alaric too." She looked up again, "Matt's on his way, Caroline and Tyler are getting help, Mrs. Flowers is here for you..." She sighed and stood up, looking at Damon and then down at the bacon that was now burning in the pan.

Her fingers twisted in the mass of curls on top of her head, and she looked at him, big, terrified eyes staring straight into his dark, confused ones.

"You're adjusting, and that's it."

"What about you?" He looked across at her and she raised an eyebrow as he spoke.

"Don't you get it?"

"Not really, no."

"I'm the spare. The... tenth wheel, if you will. Everything's all good with you guys." She reached her hands up above her head and shrugged just a little bit. "And I'm _just_ me."

He heard the way she said _'just'_ and he didn't like it one bit. Quickly pressing the off-switch on the gas and turning to put the bacon on a couple of slices of bread, he looked up at her and shook his head.

"You're not just you." Her lips parted in an attempt at a protest, but he spoke over her, "You're kind, selfless, irritating and funny, and all I can say is that that's you, of course, but you're not _just_ anything."

"Stop talking, please." He raised an eyebrow at her petulance and she did the same. "I know what you're trying to do, but I don't think it will work." She whispered, "You've not seen the nightmares. You've not seen-" She stopped and stepped closer to him, her hands still jammed deep in her pockets. "I have work to do, do you mind if I go?"

"No, no, not a problem." Though his hands shook as he lifted them to touch her cheeks, stopping her in her tracks as she let out a quiet gasp. His touch was stunning, enough to silence her, to stop her breathing. "Although I would rather you... stayed."

"I can't." And this time, it was because she could barely breathe, her eyes closing slowly and her heart pounding as his cool breath touched her cheeks, fanning out across her eyelids as his lips touched her forehead. It was a pure feeling, one of comfort, honesty, and a very, very quiet declaration of what felt like love.

"Be good, Bonnie." And just like that, his hands released her, and he let her go. She missed the warmth almost immediately, her body leaning into the empty space that he left behind him.

_He did not fight for her. He did not ask her to come back. He did not __**tell**__ her to come back._

He did not have to do either. He _knew_ that she would be back.

"Of course, Damon." Her fingertips twisted into his, and as they released each other, the moment was gone.

She drew her jacket tighter around her shoulders, ran her fingers up and down her forearms and let the door slam shut behind her.

For but a moment there, she had not felt so alone.

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Stressed and tired, with heavy tears still falling from her eyes as she tripped and stumbled her way across the few blocks home, Bonnie blundered through the falling leaves and wondered when summer had turned to autumn.

Things were changing and she was missing it. Things were changing, things were passing along all around her and she was going utterly insane.

Eyes followed the tiny, curly-haired girl as she stepped on the crunchy leaves and dodged the still-green ones which fell with every whisper of breeze. People walking in the opposite direction noted the muted khaki trousers, the dark blue jacket and the contrasting, bright red hair as it curled over the top of the girl's head. Bonnie ached with every step she took, hungry for not eating, tired for not sleeping, and hurting.

Minutes later, she threw herself into her bedroom, barely registering the sound of the door closing as she sprinted to disrobe, down to her underwear, before stepping toward the shower and throwing the remnants of her clothes to the floor.

It took only a second for her to turn the faucet on, have the water rushing over her, but it was not that that had captured her attention. It was the slimness of her ribs; her reflection caught in the background of her mind as she sprinted past the mirror leaned up against her bedroom wall. Leaving the water running and slowly losing its heat, she strode back to the tall glass, and stood before it, totally bare.

What she saw disgusted her. She could count her ribs. She could almost see every vein, every artery as it pushed the blood around her body, forced life into a body that wasn't sure what life was for anymore. _She could count her fucking ribs._

She made herself sick. _Literally_. She found herself, returned to herself on her hands and knees against the cool tiles of her bathroom, with her head pressed against the cool ceramics of the cistern. It was nice just to rest there, not to think of anything, until she realised that the water was still running and the room was somewhat filled with steam.

Forcing herself to her feet, she stumbled, slipped and tripped her way to stand lonely in the shower, hair plastering itself to her back once again, the red in it dulled as the water soaked in. Her eyes closed as the water ran suddenly cold, her body reacting only to curl in and tighten, goosebumps erupting over her skin.

When she dried herself off, she curled up into her bed and lulled herself to sleep with tears.

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_The psychic mind is a curious thing. When it feels threatened, hurt or generally uncomfortable, it reaches feelers – tentacles, we'll call them – out to those around the person who would be receptive enough to hear their cries for help. The subconscious is scared, and so it reaches forth and attempts to attain help by reaching into another's mind. _

"_Damon?_" He turned, wheeling around and nearly falling from the couch because her voice was as clear as fucking day, right behind his head.

"Where are you? Bonnie, are you okay?" His head was buzzing, reeling almost, with activity. Mindless images raced through his head and brushed straight into his head, across his eyes and flooded him with dread.

"_I need someone, Damon. Anyone._"

"What?" A beat of silence, and she knew – her subconscious knew – that he wouldn't understand. "Bonnie, do you-"

"_I need a reason, Damon." _He blinked twice and everything, nothing, all of it fit into place. "_And I need it soon." _

Images flashed through his mind once again – this time disjointed but all of them together making sense. There was the thought of sickness, images of a tiny little girl with skinny ribs showing through her skin, thoughts of hunger and just plain defeat coursing through him as the girl began to show the same kind of signs in the memories.

"What can I do?" He had his hands on his temples, rubbing slowly, pressing softly and trying to work it all out. "How can I help?"

He was silent for a moment, as were the thoughts in Bonnie's brain.

"_You don't remember this. I wasn't even there, but it's ingrained within me, and I hate it." _

Images, once again, memories of a kiss once shared between Elena and Damon, heartbeats entwining and fingertips twisting into each other's hair. The stirrings of familiarity coursed through Damon's mind, leaving him awed at the clarity of the memory when he barely remembered it himself.

"_Elena made me promise that you would never see it from me. She didn't know how much it tore me up to see it replayed in her head."_

There was silence for a minute, and Damon tried to set aside her words to process them later, but _damn _it was hard when that image, that memory was all over him. He wouldn't remember it – it had been stolen by the Kitsune and never, ever found, but that was not the point. The point was the other memories that had bombarded him at the same time. The ones Bonnie had not meant him to see.

Where Bonnie was unconscious, and all she could hear was Damon's voice, panicking about his 'little witch', his 'little bird', his girl as he tried to pull every strain of Malach venom from her, singlehandedly tried to save her from the Old Wood. A memory where his hand had brushed hers for longer than was strictly necessary as he checked her bonds upon their unconventional entry into the Dark Dimension, and her face had lit up like a beacon about it.

Then one came that hurt so badly he felt as though he had been stabbed through the heart.

_He was spinning with Bonnie in a darkened room, obviously at one of the many functions they had attended in the Dark Dimension. He stopped their movements with a slow hand catching her shoulders and pulled away to hold her at arm's length. _

"_You look stunning."_

"_You're a good liar." But it was said with a small laugh in her voice. Her head dipped, as though she couldn't look at him any longer, and he tilted her eyes up to look at him. "I wish..."_

"_You wish what?" _

"_I wish you'd see me." He blinked twice and smiled at her. _

"_But I do see you. You're right in front of me." _

_She let out a soft laugh, a sigh, a shake of the head, and then walked away._

"_Exactly." _

"What is this?" Damon said the words aloud, garnering a strange look from Elena, who was sitting prettily on the armchair in the corner, "Oh, hello, Elena."

"_She's there too." _The subconscious began to retreat from his mind, withdrawing its tentacles and clinging onto no part of him. His hands began to shake, and he tried to project straight back at her, finding nothing because he wasn't filled with _Power _anymore. He was just a man. _Human_.

"Wait!" And once again, he was yelling out, and Elena was quirking her eyebrows straight at him. As loud as he possibly could, he found the cinema reel of his memory, and began replaying it in his head as loudly as possible.

_The door was unlocked, and he could hear the kettle still boiling. The light was on in the living room, and as he passed through the room, feeling just a little more than worried, he heard the sounds of sighs and snuffles coming through the kitchen. _

"_Bonnie?" There was silence in response, but when he glanced through the doorway, he saw that she had a pair of headphones, bright pink and shiny, nestled into her ears. She wouldn't have heard him even if she had been awake. The soft sounds of whatever music she was listening to trickled from the earbuds as he knocked them from her ears. "Oh, Bonnie, I'm sorry-"_

_The coffee in her hand, half spilled all down her leg was still hot, so this could have only just happened, and immediately, he found his hands running down her leg, hoping she wasn't in too much pain as he pulled the faded trousers slightly up her leg to survey the damage. Finding a cool cloth, he did his best to brush and wipe it all away, she cried out, but too deep into her slumber to react and awaken._

_Her body fell forward, overbalanced by his gentle movements, and she toppled onto his shoulders, her arms reflexively wrapping around him, clinging to him in her slumber. Strong as he was, he did not know how long it would last, and, moving quickly, he carried her upstairs, towards her bedroom. _

_In a massive broiling pot of fear, confusion, and worry and... he could say it, he cared for her more than he probably should, he slowly laid her down on her bed and ran his fingers around the edge of her heart-shaped face, murmuring noises, but not real or proper words. He watched her for a little bit longer, watched as her breathing seemed to race as his fingers pulled back from her skin, and her lips parted in serious fear. _

"_I'm here, Bonnie," Damon whispered, curling up next to her and reaching for her hand. "I'll stay." _

There was the longest beat of silence, then he felt the touch of something against his brain once again.

"_You?" _Her subconscious was suspicious, and, of course, it had every right to be. _"You kept the nightmares away?"_

"Come speak to me, Bonnie. Not your mind, but _you_." And the subconscious tentacles slowly backed away from him, never giving him a concrete answer, but leaving him with a sense of hope that he had never _quite _experienced before.

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_**Review? Thoughts and constructive criticism are extremely welcome!**_

_**Thanks mucho to Mouse555 for the awesome beta'ing & preread! **_


	2. She Said

_**Disclaimer: I own... exactly nothing. Wow. Impressive.**_

_**So, Enjoy!**_

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**She Said**

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He rubbed his eyes, still trying to fathom exactly what had happened, and exactly why there was a genuine feeling of hope and happiness coursing through his body, lighting his veins on fire and making him smile just a little bit as he pulled himself to his feet, stretched up, arching his back like a cat and looked around the room.

It dawned on him at that moment that Elena was still sitting in the corner, watching him with widened eyes and a little awe in her expression.

"What?" Though his tone was harsh, his mind flooded with images he wasn't particularly sure he wanted to hang around. The kiss had clearly been passionate, but he was not sure that he quite wanted that memory to tarnish any kind of friendship they had now. His face flushed as he realised he was staring at her, and as though they were mirror images of each other, Elena's face soared into a crimson colour which he couldn't quite describe.

"You're the one making weird noises, Salvatore," She raised an eyebrow at him and smirked, "I should ask you the same thing."

"Rack off, Elena." He didn't leer, he didn't stare any longer, and it unnerved and confused Elena just a little bit. She was used to him watching her, almost staring as though he wanted to consume her, but his wide-eyed, open mouthed expression was one which mystified her. "I need..."

But in that moment, he wasn't exactly sure what he needed.

He shoved his hands heavily into his pockets, his expression closing off alongside his body language, and closed his eyes tiredly; trying to think of something... _anything _which would give Bonnie a reason, make her think twice about what she was doing to herself.

Try as he might, however, he could not banish the image of her skinny self from the forefront of his mind, the way her pale skin was so attractive – the way that he maybe wanted to bite down on the curve of her shoulder, even though he wasn't a vampire any more, or that he wanted to lick a trail straight from the hollow of her throat down to -

Damon shook his head and blinked a couple more times.

"No, no, _no._" Right now, he was not going to think of Bonnie like that. She was not a sex object, no matter how much Damon would have liked to lay her straight down and do bad things to the tiny redhead. First and foremost, he needed to get her well. After that? Well, the possibilities were endless.

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Fitful sleep meant that Bonnie was throwing herself around underneath her covers, wrinkling her fresh sheets, waking at nearly every brush of her sore leg against the duvet. The movement meant that she was soon sweating, even in the cool of dusk, and her flaming curls were quickly darkening, flattening and sticking to her skin.

She woke from nightmares, thinking she was surrounded, feeling as though she was taken from everything she knew, trapped, confused and scared...

She woke alone.

"Damon?" She had reached his voicemail service the first time she called, hearing the open, cheery message and feeling sick of the sound of his smile. They had recorded it together – because he hadn't known what the hell a voicemail message was, and she had ended up scripting and re-scripting it until he was laughing his head off and she was fighting back giggles too. It seemed like another time, far too far away. "Hi, Damon, it's Bonnie. Listen," She hesitated, running her hand through her hair as she laid back against her pillows. Absently, she pulled at a couple of the strands on her forehead and winced as it hurt a hell of a lot. "I'm really sorry about running out on you like that... I mean, you didn't even do anything, and I just... well..." She stopped again, staring up at her ceiling, entirely embarrassed. "I don't know what happened. I really am sorry, and I don't know what to say."

Obviously, there was silence on the other end of the line as she pondered her next words.

"I really think that we need to talk, if not about... breakfast, then about anything, Damon, because if there's one thing I'm not going to do, it's risk losing you."

She didn't say goodbye, instead simply closing her phone and let herself stare back up at the cracks in the ceiling, only realising that the burn in the corners of her eyes was actually the serious build-up of tears, forcing their way out of her eyes because that was the only way she knew how to express it. Quickly, she blinked, squeezing two shining tears from the corners of her eyes. They dripped back, tracing the curve of her cheeks, and dripping into the nest of damp hair beneath her ears. Hastily, she wiped them away, her hands slapping at her skin and almost connecting with the sharpness of her cheekbones hard enough to leave a bruise.

"I can't afford to lose him." Though the words were important enough to be spoken aloud, she could only manage a low whisper.

As though a heavy jolt of energy had surged through her, her body fought against the words that she had said aloud and forced her upright, to stare straight into the mirror she had leant against the wall.

What she saw both sickened and terrified her. Her eyes, usually hovering between a deep brown and bright blue, were a slight, dull grey, and her skin looked as though it was pulled tight over cheekbones that were nearly bursting through her skin.

_She looked like death._

In seconds, she was up on her knees, on top of the covers, and watching the way her pyjama top was almost falling from her, the way that she was just flat planes across her ribcage, and hardly any cleavage. She used to be proud of what she could fit into her bra. Now it was barely there.

As pathetic as it probably sounded, she had always been proud of her body, and she'd hoped that it would garner her just the right attention from Damon, but now? Now she was wrecked, broken... she'd go as far as to call herself damaged property, and who in their right minds would want that? She scowled at her reflection, hating herself, her body, and her pathetic defeat to... well, to defeat.

She'd have to make a change. Something would have to give, and something would have to get fixed. So, she mused, tomorrow, she would enact that change. And it would always be tomorrow, because it would be then that she faced up to the stupid attraction she felt with Damon, the ridiculous fear of abandonment that coursed through her every time he walked away. Tomorrow, Bonnie McCullough would face her nightmares.

"Always tomorrow. Tomorrow," she whispered, "and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

And then she was frantic, searching for paper and a pen, and unable to stop herself, she was writing it all. Every word she had felt, every word that had attached itself to her during ninth-grade English Literature. Macbeth's soliloquy flowed through her ink, and when that gave out, she resorted to measures she would barely think sane in a rational state.

She made herself bleed, her fingers worked to the bone as the words manifested themselves across her walls. And then it wasn't Macbeth, no. It was Romeo, Juliet, Ophelia... every tragedy she had ever read, written or imagined.

And then it wasn't fiction any more. The words were hers, pouring out across the walls, written in lipstick, eyeliner, whatever she had to hand, begging for release, for somebody to care, for the nightmares to go away and just for the easy way out.

She didn't realise that her writing had petered out, run away into just one word, one name repeated, over and over until it all blurred into one schoolboy's punishment. It looked like catharsis, like it was all going to be over, but when she ran out of walls, when the smudges were fully formed and her body and mind gave out, there was only one word on her lips before she curled up and began to cry.

"Damon..." Even thinking it hurt.

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Damon, at this stage, had been sitting in the kitchen, watching the pasta sauce cook on the hob. As the stuff bubbled, and his eyes began to droop with a fairly high level of tiredness, he kept wondering whether she was going to make it before dinner was overcooked and essentially inedible.

Eight o'clock was the time they usually met up – well, he said met up, he _honestly _meant the time Bonnie turned up with food in her bag and a big, albeit probably forced smile. Eight o'clock had come and gone without even a sound, without even an indication of Bonnie turning up.

"Damon!" Elena's voice rang out suddenly, the sound muffled by the leather and carpeting in the living room, "Your cell phone's going insane!"

"Oh, leave it, I'm busy." His soft voice barely carried to her as she sat in the armchair by the fire, and even though she followed his request to the letter, she couldn't resist leaning over and glancing at the caller ID.

"_Freckles" is Calling_

It was the picture that made Elena stop and take a second look. It was from a long time ago – or was it? Because Elena hadn't seen her best friend in a long while. The sun had been shining, and it highlighted every flaming curl from the top of her head to the twist in her cheeks that showed off her smile, and her big, soulful eyes. Bonnie had been beautiful then, made all the more because of her companion – Damon.

And immediately, Elena didn't like it. She didn't like that Bonnie and Damon had been getting closer for god-knows-how-long, because neither of them had told her anything about it, and Damon... well, he'd been strange since Bonnie had started coming over for breakfast, uninvited... were they... _no. _She shook her head at even entertaining the thought of Bonnie and Damon getting _that _close, and it was utterly _impossible _that Damon could harbour feelings for Bonnie, wasn't it?

Or was it? Everybody had changed after the Kitsune had finished with them – after the stress and strain of the Dark Dimension... maybe this change was a little too much to handle?

So, with Damon still waiting for her, getting more and more impatient in the kitchen as the time between Bonnie's expected arrival, and her actual arrive growing larger and larger, Elena did something that she knew was probably wrong, probably bad...

She did it anyway, and she relished the feeling.

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A tiny, broken girl lifted her hand up and rubbed her palm over her face as she heard her cell phone ringing out across her bedroom. She forced herself out of the foetal position, jumped up and snatched the tiny handset from her nightstand, then withdrew and curled back up in the corner.

"Hello?" Her small voice was loud in the cavernous space of her bedroom. "Uhm, Damon, is that you?" Bonnie was almost disappointed to hear Elena on the other end of the line.

"Hey Bonnie, it's me, Elena! Silly thing; why would Damon be calling you at this time of night?" Her tone was almost condescending, and Bonnie felt sick all over again.

"I just wondered. I was supposed to be meeting him for dinner, but obviously, I'm not there." She paused, "I guess I thought he'd call to check up on me."

_You wished he'd call to check up on you, Bonnie. You wish that he would care. _Even her subconscious couldn't resist taking jabs at her.

"Nope, just me." Her tone was one that Bonnie knew well – one of plots, plans and diabolical deeds, but it wasn't in Bonnie to recognise it, to care.

"Oh, right." She stopped and weighed her next words, "So, E, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm good – but it's not me that I called about!" And the long pause left Bonnie wondering what the hell this conversation was going to be about, "I figured... well, you and Damon are getting really tight... what's up with that?"

Bonnie remained silent, not entirely sure which direction Elena was about to take the conversation.

"I mean, come on, you're pretty incompatible, right? What with him being, like, the hunk of the century, and you being... well, you're just Bonnie, aren't you?" And the slurs just kept coming – cruel words that the Elena that Bonnie knew, the old Elena who was Bonnie's best friend, would never have said.

"Well," Bonnie started to get the words out, but Elena caught her words, stamping them out before they could be vocalised.

She didn't know that the redhead on the other end of the call was curled up in the corner of a decimated room, clad only in a bra, a pair of silk panties and a hairband. She couldn't see the pale tracks down Bonnie's face, the tears that were dripping from her eyes as Elena said the things she had said to people like Caroline, like Jenny and all of the bitches who opposed her back in high school.

"I mean, I'd ask you to double date with Stefan and me, but how weird would that be, like, awkward silences and everything – I've seen you guys eat breakfast together... it's really uncomfortable..."

If Bonnie had thought about it, if she had seen past the sarcasm, past the inane, childish jealousy, and really into Elena's words, she would have seen insecurity and discomfort.

Nothing more. Just a fear of losing a friend and a suitor, and the way that Elena fought that fear by bitching and biting about it.

If she had seen past the sarcasm, she would have noticed that the silences weren't quite those of the "I-don't-want-to-be-here" variety. The silences were built upon layers of tension, born from the way that Bonnie could pick up on Damon's feelings, and the way that Damon was trying to keep his feelings guarded away from the psychic's natural ability.

The tension was also built up by the fact that Damon wanted to take Bonnie to bed, and Bonnie wouldn't complain about that at all.

"Bonnie?"

"What, Elena?" And this time, when the tiny witch spoke, there was nothing but malice in her voice. "What do you really want?"

And if Bonnie had taken the time to pay attention to her surroundings, she would have noted the soft curl of smoke appearing in the corner of her bedroom, right opposite where _she_ was curled up. She would have noticed the way that her subconscious was conjuring without her even having to think, all of her thoughts racing away from her before she could even begin to control them.

"To talk to you, Bonnie, I haven't spoken to you in, like, forever!"

"That's not my fault." She was seething, burning and her body was tingling as though everything had been set on fire. "I tried, Elena."

At her words, a stunned silence split the line in two. Not only was the usually giddy witch surprised at herself, but Elena, the girl who knew everything about everyone, bold, brash and totally in control... She was surprised too, because Bonnie wasn't like this.

But Bonnie wasn't just Bonnie any longer.

"I have to go," Bonnie said dully, looking straight down at her hands. She had seen the flames from the corners of her eyes, and she had noticed that they weren't made up of normal fire. She could see that they were standing alone, not burning anything away, not damaging anything. Just existing, in an unfathomable way.

Just like her.

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The candles Damon had lit flickered violently as he swept around the darkening kitchen, the dim light of hope that he had kept burning for hours; a dim light that he would keep burning forever, if he needed to, finally beginning to go out with the tiny flames.

There was wax dotted all across the varnished wood, each candle melted halfway or more, down to the nub in some cases, but there were more than enough to fight off the darkness that was slowly beginning to encroach upon the safe, bright kitchen. With each candle dipping in brightness and going down, sinking into darkness, Damon grew less and less hopeful, his head dipping down against his chest and his eyes flickering down to the floor in resignation and defeat.

Twenty minutes past Ten O'clock came and went, and he was still alone, sat still in the darkness and watching the nothingness of the Old Wood as the evening progressed.

"Damon?" Elena's voice made him look up, jumping nearly a foot out of his seat as he saw her standing a lot closer to him than he had expected. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Nodding violently, he was trying to convince himself almost as much as he was attempting to convince Elena of the same thing. His vigorous movements switched from an up-and-down motion, to an explosion of side-to-side shakes. "No, I'm not."

"What's wrong?" It was the same tone that she had used against Bonnie during their phone call earlier. Too cutesy, too patronising, too unbelievable for him to realise that she was playing him like a priceless clarinet.

"Have you heard from Bonnie today?" It wasn't as though Elena was his last hope – he could always go to visit his little witch, but he just wanted to know. He wanted to know if he was out of her favour, if she was okay... he just wanted to _know. _

"I can honestly say that she hasn't contacted me."

"_Shit_!" Damon would have punched straight through the damn table if he had still retained his vampire strength. As it was, he merely damaged his hand, breaking his skin and leaving trails of blood behind. "Damnit!"

He was worried that he'd terrified her, that he'd scared her off and that she didn't want to know him anymore. He was worried that she was hurting, and that he couldn't do anything about it.

"Do you think she's okay?" He glanced up at a horror-stricken Elena, and she would have simply shrugged and nodded, had she not noticed the way his eyes were so empty, the way he looked as though he was begging her to tell him that Bonnie was fine, that she just wanted nothing to do with him.

Unfortunately, however, she saw his eyes. She saw the hurt, the fear, and the shadows of a tiredness she had never seen before, and she felt guilty for even thinking of hiding the truth.

"No, Damon... I don't."

He nodded and rose, blowing out the last candle and sending the pair of them into darkness, before crossing slowly to the doorway. _He could call her, talk to her that way. Hope she would listen. _

"Where's my cell?" When he couldn't see it on the table, he turned to Elena and raised his eyebrows up at her.

"Oh, um..." She handed it across to him, "Here," And then, smiling slightly, "Someone called Freckles called you."

It didn't take a genius to work out that Freckles was Bonnie, her red hair and pale complexion lending itself ideally to the nickname. It was obvious that Elena had seen the picture that was assigned to the contact. It didn't take Damon particularly long to work out that Elena had kept that from him, when even the slightest moment of contact with the tiny redheaded girl that was Bonnie was _**all**_ he had been waiting for all day long.

"Why didn't you tell me?" With a voice so flat and full of danger, Elena should have known not to try to play the smart-assed blame game.

"Because you told me, and I quote, to "leave it"! You were 'busy' apparently."

"You knew I was waiting for her!" His voice was low and menacing, his eyes narrowed ridiculously in sheer fury and rage. "Elena, I really..." He shook his head and let out a feral growl that even he had not been expecting. "Do you even think, sometimes? She could be hurt! She could be..."

"She's fine, Damon." There was a pause, and he looked up at Elena expectantly, "I called her. She hung up on me, after basically telling me I didn't try hard enough to be her friend."

There was a long span of silence, and Damon weighed his options. He could either hit the girl in front of him, thereby taking out his frustrations on someone he was sure he had been previously in love with, or he could channel such a frustration into going straight to the girl he wanted to see and fighting for her.

And Damon didn't hit girls, so his options were kind of narrowed down.

"She could be dead. And no, you didn't try hard enough, considering your... _sisterhood._" He spat the words, shoved his hands into his pockets and let out a furious growl.

"There's a voicemail, Damon." Elena said after a few minutes of him staring at the floor, staring at the cell phone and hoping that it would ring.

"Yeah." He nodded, pressing the handset to his ear and pressing his free hand to his forehead.

The voice on the other end was so broken, so tired and weak that he wanted to travel back in time and protect her from whatever it was that was scaring her. Through the two minutes of pauses, fearful words and a soft exhale at the end, he had his eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the rest of the world.

"If there's one thing I'm not going to do... It's risk losing you."

At her final words, the dial tone beeped twice and the call ended. Damon let out a low sigh, then a guttural growl, and almost threw his phone at the wall as a reaction to his fury.

"I'm going out." He looked fleetingly at Elena, then nodded and nearly sprinted from the Boarding House.

He needed to find her. He desperately needed her.

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_**Review?**_

_**Thoughts?**_

_**Thankyou!**_


	3. No More Screams

**Disclaimer: If LJ Smith ever read this, she'd probably die a horrible death from laughing at its crapness. So no, I don't own the Vamp Diaries.**

**Thank the lord for Mouse555, she saved my backside on this chapter...**

**Oh, yes. I hope you like this, it's quite fluffy.**

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**No More Screams?**

When you're standing on one side of a door which you think is locked, a million possibilities go through your mind. Some are exciting, some are funny, but, as Damon Salvatore was currently finding out, when you're scared for Bonnie McCullough's life, those thoughts are generally quite morbid.

_Is she dead? Is she alive? Will she be bleeding? Crying? Conscious? _

Damon lifted his hand to her bedroom door, having clambered into the house via the back gate and unlocked back door, and carefully tried the shining brass doorknob. It jiggled violently as he raised his hand to it, and for a moment he wondered whether she was trying desperately to get out. Then he realised it was his hand that was shaking.

_The emotion that came with humanity sucked. _

"Bonnie!" He called her name and hoped for an answer. It didn't matter what it was, he just hoped that she could answer him.

Silence greeted his words, and he felt sick.

"Bonnie, baby, please say something!" Another, lengthy silence and Damon snapped. He couldn't do it – couldn't stand by and wait and hope when she was only on the other side of the door.

Cringing, waiting for the pain to come, he backed away from the door and charged it with his shoulder, taking four steps and hoping to god that it broke the first time. He wasn't sure what he would do if it didn't go to plan. _Charge the door again, dumbfuck._

As he connected with the solid wood door, his arm gave a grinding 'crunch' and a searing pain shot through his shoulder. Quickly, he shook his head to dispel the serious pain and let out a feral roar that seemed to originate back in his vampire days, charging the faux-oak panelling as though he were a bull, and the simple, flimsy door was a red rag.

It buckled under the pressure and he ploughed through it, stumbling across Bonnie's wooden flooring to land knees-first on her fluffy green rug, narrowly missing the pale skin of the girl in question's leg.

Breathing heavily, and massaging his shoulder, he leaned back on his haunches and tried to take stock of the situation.

_She was on the floor. She was cold and on the floor and she looked __**dead**__. She was nearly naked and god... she was __**cold.**_

"Bonnie?" His hands were on her body in seconds, feeling across her skin for the flicker of a heartbeat, for any kind of pulse or warmth, and when he found the weakest of rhythms in her chest, he let out a deep breath he had no idea he had been holding. "Bonnie, please, please wake up!"

He was panicking, and he knew it, because damn, it was the one of the more terrifying feelings in the world. He felt entirely helpless, his chest hurting almost with a physical pain, and he just didn't know what to do.

Part of him wanted to call for Stefan, but he wouldn't. He refused to share this beautiful image of Bonnie with _anyone._ She was cold, in a terrifying way, and he needed her to be so very warm. He would put her into bed. It would make her better. _It had to. _

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_She was cold. Damned cold, and damned frightened, and she didn't know how to answer the voice which was floating around in her consciousness. She didn't like being trapped in limbo – with everything working but nothing responding to her own desires. After a few minutes, and a lot more panicked whispers, she felt the warmth of his hands, his arms as he lifted her from the rug and onto the bed, fingertips running across her skin and then drawing the duvet up to her chest._

_How much she wanted to vocalise her thanks – her thanks because he cared. The words caught in her throat and she tried, __**oh, she tried**__, but nothing came. She was paralysed, numbed, every muscle in her body frozen so that she couldn't move. _

Damon straightened up after dragging every cover he could find up to cover Bonnie's skin. Rubbing his shoulder – for lifting her up with his arms had made it ache so soon after he had brought down a door with such simple equipment – he sat down on the bed beside her and slowly traced the shape of her thin, thin body as her chest rose and fell beneath the blankets.

She had been so slim beforehand, before all of this had happened, and then now, she was barely there – she didn't even look _human_. Her cheeks were gaunt, and though her cheekbones looked stunning, and her body was so very attractive to him even when she weighed barely anything, he wanted her well. He wanted her to be beautiful, and buxom, and have hips that were curvy, not made up of angles.

_She was not a naturally angular person. She was all softness and kindness and curves. _

Eventually, when he knew he had to drag his eyes from the girl who looked comatose, but he was sure – well, not sure, but hoping – was asleep, he rose from the bedcover, untangling his hand reluctantly from hers.

Moving back from the bed, he leaned across and flicked on her heavy bedside lamp, running a hand through his hair as the shadows caught what looked like lipstick on the wall. A second later, he realised what he was looking at was not just a stain – but part of a word.

That was when he noticed the damn state of the walls. The two posters she had taped to the walls were hanging down to the floor, ripped from the centre so that the top corners were still hanging on to walls. It was as though... She had scrawled words in what looked like pretty much anything Bonnie had been able to get hold of.

Slowly, and keeping his eyes glued to the wall, he took a step closer and realised _exactly _what it was that he was reading. "Damon." His name, over and over and over. Almost like a child writing lines in detention, only with fully formed, shaking hands, and in script which flowed even better than Stefan's.

He didn't even pretend to understand what was going on with the girl who was lying in her bed, chilled through to the bone and entirely unresponsive, but whatever it was, hell, even if it was out of his control, he would go to the ends of the earth and back just to fix it.

_As he sat down beside her and shrugged his jacket off, toeing off his shoes at the same time, he wondered exactly how he'd come to care so much. _

He needed to talk to her, rather than just staring at her, looking at the way her lips were different shades of pink, tinged with a frozen kind of blue, but so full and soft and then there were freckles all over her cheeks and she was everything he hadn't had before – everything he wanted, but wasn't sure he could have. And to be able to talk to her... he needed her to be awake.

_And for her to be awake, she needed to be warm. _

With shaking hands, he pulled back the covers, and, clad only in his boxers and his open shirt, slipped into the bed beside her and pulled her frozen body against his. He would hold her forever, if it kept them connected.

He was Damon Salvatore, king of the one-night-stand, the master manipulator extraordinaire... so where the fuck had that come from?

Still, he didn't remember smiling at that thought, and knowing that something had changed, closing his eyes and falling asleep with Bonnie McCullough in his arms.

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The first thing Damon Salvatore felt when he woke up in the morning, was a very solid smack to the back of the head.

"What the fuck, Damon?" He cringed at the harshness of the sunlight as she threw her curtains open, as though she hadn't totally broken down the night before. "Do you think this is funny?"

"What?"

"Well, for one, I wake up and I'm all wrapped up in your shirt and your ar-" She stopped as she sat back down on her bed and stared at him, "Why were you nearly naked in my bed?"

"I was trying to warm you up! I got here and you were... you weren't even conscious! I figured the quickest way to heat you up would be..." Shrugging, he sort of threw his hands out at the bed and smirked, "Sharing body heat."

The room resounded with an 'oomph-motherfucker-that-hurt" as she hit him with her pillow again.

"B- Bonnie, _cara_, it was purely to warm you up, you were, like, ice cold, I _swear_," he raised his hands up over his head and waited for the pillow to come smashing down on top of his head. Before she could strike, however, he rushed out a second, quick apology, "I'm sorry, but I was damned worried about you!"

There was a very long, slightly worrying period of silence, and he wondered whether she had relapsed, or whether she had killed him already. He slowly dropped his hands and looked up at her. He hadn't expected her to have set the pillow down, staring back at him with wide eyes.

"Thank you, Damon, for caring."

Hesitantly, he reached his hand out to her, and she shifted closer to him, drawing her knees up and sliding back under the covers. Her furious anger – and the tension it had brought between them, had been replaced entirely.

"You're welcome, _cara_." He watched her burrow back into the pillow and pull the covers back up to her chin, looking at him with a sweet blush all over her face. Without thinking, he lifted his hand and brushed his fingers against her cheeks, then dropped his hand to her shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

"What're you-"

"You're still cold, _cara._" A breath, "Please let me hold you."

And for a long minute she paused, watching his face for any signs of malice or amusement. She saw nothing but genuine care and concern.

He held out his arm, and she acquiesced to him by shifting over and tucking herself neatly into his side. He had only two thoughts – _home, _and that it was just _nice... right,_ to hold her in his arms. Then she leaned into him properly, taking his hand and wrapping it around her waist. He liked the feel of her skin beneath his hands, but he didn't like that he could feel her ribs beneath his fingertips. Slowly, he leaned his nose into her neck, breathing in the smell of her hair and just _being _with her.

"What's _cara_?" She said suddenly, making him jump out of his skin and flush bright red.

"What's what?" He raised an eyebrow, hoping he could simply dazzle her into forgetting her words.

"It's what you called me, just now, and when you were... _explaining yourself._" She whispered, feeling her cheeks flush, and then his hands brushing lower and lower against her ribs.

He blinked a couple of times, still brushing his hands against her skin, feeling it flush and knowing he was befuddling her just as quickly as she had done to him.

"Damon, tell me," She said, though without any kind of conviction, simply because he was playing with the elastic of her knickers and she was going to scream in a second. His other hand was brushing against her ribs and she was sighing lightly until she had had enough.

In a half second, her tiny frame was turned around and straddling him, her fingers gripping his chin to force him to look at her.

"Tell me what it means, and no funny business!" Despite the strength of her words, her voice was soft, caressing him and sending his head spinning.

He slapped his hand up to her wrist and gripped it hard enough to bruise. His eyes locked with hers and she couldn't breathe.

"Only when you tell me about the writing on the walls."

It was a low blow, but he didn't know how to _care _about someone. He didn't know that her heart was crying out for the truth, and she didn't know that he would be answering it within the hour.

"I was scared and alone..." She replied after a moment, choosing the truth from her subconscious instead of the lies her mind wanted to concoct. Lowering her eyes, she loosened her grip on him just a little bit, "I wanted someone... I wanted..." She took a deep breath again, "Damon, I wanted _you _to come and protect me."

"It means _beloved_," He retorted just as simply, just as quickly. "It means... _my_ _darling_, _Tesoro_, _mia adorata_, call it what you will." He murmured, releasing her wrist. "It means a million stupid things that I won't pretend to understand... but I don't _pretend_ to feel them, either, Bonnie."

_He would not pretend to care. _

"What're... what're you saying, Damon?" She had dropped her hand to his chest, lightly pressing against the space where she could just about feel his heartbeat.

"I don't know Bonnie, I really don't, but...I know there are _feelings_." He brushed a hand through her tangled curls and let his fingers rest against her cheek, "Feelings which make me hurt – physically hurt, Bonnie, when I see you all alone and scared."

"I hate walking away from you." She whispered, "I feel like I'm leaving something behind."

"I don't want to let go of you." He murmured, "It's like I lose a limb." He paused, and let out a laugh, "Well, not really... but you know. It's like I can't function in normal society without you."

"You can't."

"Neither can you."

"I know."

They were silent for a long time, staring at each other and knowing, _just knowing. _

"Somehow Bonnie, when you're near me... I feel more whole – more human... and I don't want that feeling to stop."

"Then don't let it." her lips curved into a smile and she leaned forward, "I don't know what we've got, but... can we keep it?"

"You're talking like our feelings are a giant puppy."

"Well," She pouted, "I don't know how else to say it! You try it!"

"Well, I don't know how to say it!"

"Say something then! Open your mouth, and words come out, it's called tal-"

Damon cut her off by crushing his lips to hers. Breathing heavily, he pulled back after the sweetest of touches, pressing his lips to hers again, far less forcefully than before.

"For future reference, I do _not_ treat puppies like that."

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A/N: Any chance of a review?


	4. It's A Mystery

_**Disclaimer: No. I don't. So don't even think that! Don't even think of thinking it. I own NOTHING!**_

_**Thanka you mouse555, you have saved this chapter, and probably this story. So yeah, IOU one Jackson. **_

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**Enjoy!**

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**It's a Mystery (Why a Boy Like You'd Want a Girl Like Me)**

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They didn't move for a very long time, with Damon quietly cradling Bonnie in his arms as they both dozed peacefully. Her hands covered his, holding onto him as he lightly pressed his fingers into and across her skin, feeling her hands tightening against his as his warmth slowly transferred to hers.

Neither of them spoke, though occasionally, he made some kind of noise that was neither a word, nor a moan, and he would press his lips to her hair, or her temples. He wanted to kiss her properly, to trace her lips with his own, to really make her feel how much he wanted her, but he knew he couldn't risk it.

Her lips were still tinged a little with purple, something like a bruise forming on her skin from where he had kissed her before – and it hurt when he touched her there, when he traced the skin with his fingertips.

"Bonnie-" But she had winced and he had felt like hell for it.

But he wouldn't pull away. Her lips were there, and he wanted to touch her, he wanted to claim her and have her and know her and... he had to _have_ her then.

When he gently touched her lips with his, he lost all vestiges of control.

Her hands were wrapped in his hair in a half second, and he was pulling on her shoulders – even though he didn't want to hurt her, didn't want to bruise her, hurt her... but when she let out a soft gasp-moan, he pulled away expecting to see her grimace, to see her hurt. She was smiling wider than he had ever seen.

So he pushed his luck and lowered his lips to hers again.

When they finally broke apart, she stared at him with wide eyes and watched the single tear form in the corner of his eye and fall to the covers between them. Her hand immediately flew to his cheek, wiping away the sadness and hoping to replace it with a smile.

"Boy," She whispered, barely able to contain what she was feeling alongside his own, "Why're you crying?"

"I'm only crying because I can't get my shadow to stick." He retorted sarcastically, almost feeling a barrier slide up between them, and she shook her head almost furiously.

"Damon," _Be serious. _He hesitated about telling her the truth and almost gnawed his lip into nothing before he spoke.

"It's more than overwhelming, Bonnie." _Yes, it's more than overwhelming that you're a cryptic fuck._ But she didn't say that out loud.

"What is?"

He let out a sigh, then ran his hand lightly through her hair and touched her cheek this time, so that they were reflected within each other, and he could almost _touch_ the way she was _feeling_. It sounded like idiocy when he pondered it longer, but the... _feeling _between them was palpable.

"You're breakable, Bonnie, and I don't want you broken." He swallowed heavily and looked away, "I don't want to break you."

She looked at him for a long time, watching the way he stared at her, then, as his eyes began to shine, and he felt it burning in his throat, he violently swiped at his eyes, sniffing and looking anywhere but at her.

"Are you actually crying because you're scared you'll _hurt_ me?" She wouldn't believe it.

"No." _Yes. _He was sullen and maddening.

"You are, Damon." She was persistent and annoying.

"I'm not." So was he. "Leave me alone."

"Never." She crept closer to him and very slowly ran a hand across his damp cheeks, "I'm not going anywhere today, tomorrow or the foreseeable future, sweet."

They remained silent for the better part of a half an hour, and it was only when Damon realised that Bonnie's breathing had evened out and her lips were toying with a smile that he noticed that she was asleep. Her hands were still clinging to his, and his fingers didn't want to release her, but he had to let her _sleep_.

So he employed the hug-and-roll technique that he had, indeed, learned from an old episode of 'Friends', and left her dozing under the covers. She was still sleeping peacefully when he slipped out from beneath the duvet and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

"I will be back." He murmured, then, as an afterthought, "Possibly with breakfast." At the sound of his voice, he noted the way her face relaxed and her smile widened even further. _Maybe the psychic mind also knew when it was hungry, _he mused.

And he swept his way down into her kitchen in absolute silence, still wearing just a pair of boxers and feeling a little more than cold as he looked around the nearly-bare room. She had almost no food – and then he remembered that she ate basically everything at the Boarding House, with him, and hoped that she had some kind of... _snackage_ in the building, just to fill them up for the morning – or until they could get out shopping.

He found a fresh loaf of bread, and figured that he couldn't really burn the house down with toast. _Well, he could, but he would be good about it, and attempt not to._ Without terrific incident, he waited for the bread to brown, and sought out the butter.

When he next took a deep breath, he could smell the toast burning, and let out a low yelp as he attempted to work out the best way to kill the toaster without actually damaging it. _Smashing it with a hammer was, unfortunately, not a viable option. _

He needed to get the bread out, first off, and the only thing available for the job was the butter knife. So he jammed it straight in, and was totally surprised when it fizzed loudly and he felt the jolt all the way up his arm. _So, this was what it was like to be electrocuted. _The lights flickered heavily, and then went out, and in the gloom of the morning, Damon let out a feral growl and debated committing toastercide by throwing it into the nearest river.

"Fucking... shit-" He swore, realising that he had absolutely no idea what he had done and that he would have to wake Bonnie up to get it all sorted out.

Sighing, he shook his head and felt his body tighten as he stumbled up the stairs. _Sometimes he missed being a Vampire._ Lightly rapping on her door, and pushing it open when he was sure that she wasn't going to answer him, he stepped into the room and glanced across at her, sleeping in her bed.

Damon stopped dead in his tracks.

Bonnie was curled up on top of the blankets like a sleek kind of cat, her pale skin standing out against the dark bedding like mother of pearl in the early morning light. With blazing curls spread out on the pillow like a fan on fire, she looked like a kind of goddess, to be worshipped and adored in a way Damon couldn't quite grasp. Stepping closer, he bent to look at her face, her heart shaped mouth, was the most relaxed he'd seen it as she smiled gently in sleep, and Damon couldn't help lifting his hand to lightly brush his thumb across her lips. She was stunning. There were no two ways to word it, no ways to skirt around the issue. Her eyelids fluttered, and he caught the way her lashes curled perfectly onto her cheeks, almost rendering the image of her thinness, her prominent cheekbones irrelevant, because the colour mixed with her freckles, and he watched it as the colours changed in the sunlight.

He couldn't wake her when she looked like that – it would be sacrilegious, or cruel, wrong to disturb his little bird like that – no, 'little bird' would not do, any longer. She was his beloved, _cara mia, _and he would tell her that at every opportunity.

So he closed his eyes, and leaned back into the pillows, pulling her sleeping form into his arms and just enjoying being closer to her than he ever thought he would get.

_And there goes Damon-Fucking-Salvatore and... oh, what's that? He's caring again? ... surely he's ill..._

Smiling at the idiocy and sarcasm which filled his conscious, he squeezed Bonnie tighter and let himself drift into another world entirely.

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Bonnie woke up with a very familiar, yet entirely unfamiliar hand twisted into her hair. Her head was against whoever's chest this was, and it was pounding with the obscurity of the situation. She blinked twice, eyes adjusting to the light, and, reflexively, curled up against the warm body she was entangled with. Then she risked glancing up, and her breath caught in her throat at the megawatt smirk which was aimed straight at her.

"Morning, sunshine," He leaned closer & pulled his arms tighter around her, "Good sleep?"

"How did you... When-" And then it hit her. The writing on the walls, '_cara' _and all of its connotations_, _all of it came rushing back with an aside of insecurity. She tightened her grip on him convulsively and felt his hands do exactly the same, "Don't leave me, Damon."

Resting his lips against her forehead and resisting letting the smirk make another appearance, for fear of her hitting him with the pillow once again, he hummed quietly and told her that he wouldn't leave her side.

"But I think I blew something downstairs, none of the lights work."

"What? What the hell were you doing downstairs?" Her eyes widened and he calmed her ever so slightly by lowering his mouth to hers and letting their lips do the talking. When he pulled away, she noticed the slightly embarrassed flush on his face and pressed for an answer.

"I... uh, blew up the toaster." He forced out of a tight throat, expecting her to blow up at him. She did nothing of the sort – instead, lowering her head and snorting lightly at the idiocy of it.

"Are you hurt, baby?" She murmured, lowering her hand to his, and pulling it up to inspect, then very lightly brush her lips against his knuckles. He was stunned at the way she was so gentle, especially when her fingers caught against the tiny patch of burn on the side of his palm and he let out a sharp gasp.

"Apparently so." He muttered, yanking his hand away from her and shaking it violently to dispel the pain. Bonnie's face contorted for a minute, and the pain was almost immediately gone. "Stop that." He said quickly, hoping that she would give in, "Bonnie, stop taking the pain, or I'll-"

"You'll what," She said, still frowning slightly, "Blow up the refrigerator?" She couldn't help but laugh, and he felt his face redden in humiliation.

"Oh, that is it-" He frowned slightly and without warning, almost flew onto the bed on top of her, ignoring the feeling of her slightly protruding hipbones and grabbing her by the hips. He was very quickly, and very mercilessly, tickling her ribs until she could barely breathe, and was begging for mercy as she squirmed and shrieked beneath him. In an attempt to still his hands, she grabbed them, trying to force his wrists away and locking her legs around his hips in an attempt to stop him from getting away.

_Oh, god, that felt good. _

Before he realised it, he was pressing her hips into the mattress, still trying to tickle her, but grinding not-so-little-Damon against her at the same time. Giving up on the tickling almost instantly, Damon pressed a hand to either side of Bonnie's head, watching her chest rising and falling as she panted, her eyes already darkening at the feeling of anticipation he was practically exuding. His lips hovered over hers for a long moment as they breathed in sync, and then it all exploded into a fireball as he lowered his mouth to hers and let out a long moan as her arms tightened around him, her mouth slowly opened and their tongues mingled so violently that for a fleeting second, Bonnie was worried one might bite the other.

Her hands were raking down his back as he slowly started to slide his fingers up her sides, straight up to the soft curve of her chest as she lightly moaned into his mouth and slid her hand down to pull him closer by his backside. It was simply by luck that he was in the right place, pressing into the right spot, but both of them were getting the perfect friction as her lips shifted up to his and he let out a low moan straight into her mouth.

_God, she loved his hands. _

"Are you okay, _cara_?" He whispered against her cheek, and she nodded, "Good." There was a pause and he pressed his hips against hers again, she gasped, "Are you close?"

She didn't even know. Something was broiling within her, for certain, but she was... _unsure_, of what exactly it was. _Nobody had got her off before._ And the feeling of inferiority that accompanied her first even-close-to-orgasm coming from Damon, a more than three hundred year old ex-vampire who clearly had more experience than she was ever going to get, drained the moment for her faster than thoughts of an overweight Tyler in a leopard print Speedo.

Dropping her hands from his back and letting out a frustrated cry, Bonnie pulled back and pushed lightly at his shoulders to pry his soft, kind lips from her neck.

"Bonnie?" She buried her head in his shoulder and shook her head. "_Cara, _what's wrong?"

And now she was questioning how many girls he had asked that question to.

"I'm a Virgin, Damon." She whispered into his chest, feeling the slow rise and fall of it and knowing that a million other girls had probably heard the same heart beating. "An entirely pathetic virgin." She stopped and looked up at him, "I'm going to be useless to you – I don't even know what I like – how am I supposed to please someone... as... _experienced _as you?"

"Do you think..." He was momentarily stunned at her quick admission of humiliation, and he pondered the words very quickly, "Do you think I _expect _you to be _good _at this? Do you think I would actually _expect _anything of someone like you?"

She stiffened in his arms and suddenly she felt sick.

"_Someone like me._" She hissed, suddenly lashing out and feeling more self-conscious than she had before. Her hands crossed over her body and Damon tried to take them in his own, tell her that wasn't what he meant – but she had taken it that way, now, and he was in shit until he could figure out a way to get out of it.

"No, Bonnie, that's not what I meant-"

"I bet you've had hundreds of virgins," She hissed, feeling her skin flaming, "a good fuck and run, right?" She felt humiliated, and sick, and she curled up to fight it away. Of course, it wouldn't go.

"Bonnie," His hand touched her face and he retreated as though he'd been burned by her skin – which he had, because she was setting off that kind of vibe. "_Cara, _please!"

_No. _

She was up on her feet by the time he was able to try and touch her again.

"_Please, Bonnie!" _Please.

But she had slammed the bathroom door before he could even breathe.

_No. No. Nonononononononono. This could __**not **__be happening. He wouldn't allow it. It was wrong, he was supposed to love her, not scare her, and most definitely __**not**__ upset her. He was hurting her, just like he said he would, and... she was running away. _

"Bonnie!" She wouldn't reply.

So he kept trying, calling for nearly an hour, but never going to her, because she would lash out and hurt him. And that would not be good. In the end, he tried another tactic – he stepped back, pulled his clothes back on and called out to her that he was leaving.

Still nothing.

_He was starting to get antsy. He was starting to get irritated. He was starting to get pissed and worried and he just didn't know how to be the normal guy, and tell his normal girl exactly what she wanted to hear. _

How could he do that, when he was hardly normal? _He needed coaching. _And for that, he needed a perfectly normal guy, in a somewhat abnormal situation.

_He needed Matt. _

"Bonnie! _Cara mia, _I'll be back in a little while." And without another word, he silently moved around the room, picking up her clothes and neatening the bedspread, before running downstairs, unplugging the toaster and tucking it under his arm as he sprinted out of the door.

He even left a little post-it note that said 'I love you'.

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_**A/N: So, er, review?**_

_**The title of this chapter stems from It's A Mystery - by LilT and "One track mike" - off the scoobydoo soundtrack. find it, listen to it, associate it, REVIEW . **_


	5. DismantleRepair

_Disclaimer: I shit you not, I don't own this. _

_See, I think I like this chapter. It's a balance of fluff and idiocy. We're back to the heavy next time, though. _

_Mouse555 is a goddess. She talks me down from confused ledges, which may have led me to talk about Bonnie as a Builder. And nobody wants that. Here's a clue for you: Jensen Ackles, in the bedroom, size of a candlestick. _

_Enjoy!_

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**Dismantle. Repair**

He knocked quietly on the front door to the Honeycutt household, hoping that Matt was up this early and genuinely worrying because he had just walked out on Bonnie after their first fight, and she could be saying or doing anything right now, and he wouldn't know, and it frightened him, and he didn't like this mass of feeling that was all over him and all the way through him and burning him alive.

"What the hell do you want?" Matt opened the door just as he was bringing his hand up to rub his bleary blue eyes. His fingers hovered lightly by his throat as he stared at the human-vampire in front of him who looked so hopeless and helpless that he almost pitied him. Only then did he start to close the door in Damon's face.

_Well, that wasn't the reunion he had been expecting. _

"**Wait**!" Damon threw his hand out between the door and the frame; half-hoping Matt would stop before he crushed his fingers, but knowing that the All-American Boy would probably do it anyway, just to spite him. The crunch of his bones as they whacked the doorframe was quite painfully audible, and his next words were only a whisper, "Please? It's about Bonnie-"

There was silence for a moment, then a sad sigh from the other side of the door, and Matt let go of the handle, allowing Damon to push it open and hesitate on the threshold. Poor Matt had always had a soft spot when it came to the pretty little witch.

"Do I have to invite you in?" Matt was somewhat curious about the 'vampire rules' and whether Damon could get in now, or whether those rules still stood as they had done in his non-human form.

"I don't think so." He tentatively took a step across the doorway, and when he was not expelled from the house by a violent and unseen force, took the other foot and placed it firmly into Matt's home.

"Right, then. What do you want?" There was a long silence, and Damon looked down at the floor, feeling his face flush and his body begin to burn. When the lack of words finally got to Matt, he grabbed Damon by the shoulders and shook him just a little bit. "What have you done to her? Is she okay?" But the ex-vampire kept his eyes trained on the floor, "Damon, you've got to tell me-"

"I think I..." Then, a long pause, "I'm not good at being human, Mutt..."

"Well, no, you're not, Damon, but really, you're not helping me by avoiding the question." He paused and sat down on his sofa, pressing his head into his hands, "Let's start simply. _Is Bonnie alive?_"

"Well, yes. Yes, she is, quite alive, and quite pissed off, I think."

"Okay, next question: _What did you do?_"

_And again with the silence. _

"Damon?" Matt looked the darker man up and down, hoping that he would decide to speak sooner or later, and fleetingly worrying about every single thing that could have happened to Bonnie at the hands of Damon Salvatore.

_To be honest, there were a lot of options._

"I kinda... maybe... tried to get her off." _Yeah, because that didn't sound like a lie. _

"You what?" And Matt was a little more than pissed off at that as well.

"Well, I might have toldherthatI-" And then his words got slurred into a quiet mumble, and his face grew red once again.

"Damon?" Matt was feeling more and more like a kindergarten teacher scolding a delinquent child by the second, "Look, asshole, you don't like me, and I don't particularly like you, but I'm listening, so you'd better make sure the words you're saying are audible."

"I might have told her that I... _wanted to be with her_." He said it all very quietly, but incredibly confidently, even though he wasn't feeling confident at all.

"You want to be with her?" Matt nearly needed to hold his somewhat hysterical laughter in. "What? Bang her one night and leave her in the cold? Or string her along for a week and see how that goes?"

"No, actually. I want to make this a..." Damon hesitated for a second, "I want to make it a permanent thing."

"So, you want to settle down?" Incredulity laced Matt's tone as he tried not to laugh out loud, "You? Mr Fuck-and-Run extraordinaire?" A short pause, "But... then again, you'll want to make like a human, now that you are one, right? How many girls are you going to try to keep up at once? Three? Four? Or are you gonna go for one a night and rotate them weekly?"

"Do you _mind_?" Damon was on his feet in a second, red faced and furious, "If you even think I would consider doing that to somebody as loving and genuine as Bonnie, you're a deluded, sick _fuck_."

"Well, Damon, you have got form in the matter." Matt muttered quickly, staring at Damon across the coffee table, "How can I trust you?"

"Look, if you need a reason to trust me, I don't know what to tell you, but quite trying to pull the protective bulldog act, because to me, it just seems like you're trying to get me to leave her alone." Damon snapped his fingers as though the logic had just come to him, "Maybe you are! Maybe you want her for yourself, huh? You want to be the one to hold her at night, tell her everything's gonna be alright... That you can be her hero, baby, that you can kiss away her pain? That you'll stand by her – forever?" Although he was, admittedly quoting Enrique Iglesias, he was going to stick with the sentiment, "Well it's not going to work because _I_ love her." And now hysterical Damon was dead serious, once again, "Y'hear that, Mutt? _**I love her**_!"

A deafening silence echoed throughout the Honeycutt household, and the two men looked at each other, almost challenging the other to speak first. Matt broke the silence with a furious snarl.

"I'm sorry, you _what _her? Are you actually serious? 'Cause if you're just saying that so I'll help you get all up in her panties, I swear to God, you'll wish you were a vampire again, just so you'll have the strength to even think of stopping me from kicking your ass from here to the Dark Dimension and back."

"Look, _Mutt_, I'm telling you now, that the day that I even start to let her down, I will let you beat my ass down, but I do. When I say these words, I'm telling you the honest to whatever-deity-you-wish-to-call-upon's truth; _I am in love with Bonnie McCullough_."

"Prove it."

"How the hell am I supposed to prove it? What do you want to hear?" Damon wrenched his hands into his hair and looked at Matt, "That when she's in the room, I feel a lot less... unsettled? That her smile is the only thing I want to see in the mornings, when I wake up, and that she's just... so perfect, that even when she doesn't know what she's doing, she does it right. That her face is just – her eyes are so warm she actually makes me _forget_ that I'm cold when we lock eyes, and that... damnit, she makes me feel human... More human than when I was human...you know, last time." Damon let out a sigh and dropped his hands, "She makes me feel... alive."

"Finally." Through his entire tirade, Matt had been able to actually _see_ the aggression leave Damon's body as he spoke about her. A small smile played at the corner of his mouth which made Matt think there may well be hope for Damon yet. "Dude? I don't think you should be telling all of that to me. I think the person that needs to hear it is about yea high," He gestured to his shoulder, to exactly where Bonnie reached on both boys' bodies, "And has a big mass of red hair." He shrugged, "Kinda witchy personality, very beautiful."

Damon didn't say a word, simply looking at Matt as if to say '_well, duh' _before rolling his eyes almost to the back of his head.

"Well, if you completely understand what I'm saying, then why the hell are we still having this conversation?"

"Because _she_ won't let me in."

After a long moment, where Matt considered every pointless argument that he had ever had with a girl, be it Elena, Bonnie, Meredith, his mother, cousins or one of his lab partners, he smiled wryly at Damon and gestured at the sofa.

"Take a seat, and we'll see what we can do."

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Bonnie was curled up on her sofa, complete with a tear-stained face, blocked nose and puffy eyes as she considered what the hell she could do now. She had nobody left, and nobody to reach out to, because everybody else had shut her out in one way or another.

Damon had gone out, and left her alone as well.

_So, B. Who ya gonna call?_

_**If you even consider suggesting Ghostbusters, I will cut you.**_

_I'm your mind; I'd like to see you try. Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters! Ghoooostbusterrrrrsss!_

_**I can see that conversation going well, can't you?**_ _**Excuse me, uhm, Ghostbusters? I don't understand why a 300 year old ex-vampire would want to bang an 18 year old human virgin. Help?**_

Even her subconscious was mocking her. Could her life actually get any worse? She needed help, but there was just no one there for her anymore. Was it even worth her trying to live a life? Aah, Bonnie. So _emo_, poor witch.

She figured her life could only bounce upwards from there. So, she settled herself down on the sofa with a cup of tea and didn't remember falling asleep to the soft tones of 'friends' – though _how ironic was that? _Her dreams were static this time, as they had been ever since she had fallen asleep beside Damon – although that was strange, because he was most definitely not there.

At least... she thought he wasn't.

Her lips parted at the request of the pair lightly covering hers, and for a half second, her eyes, blurred from her nap, flickered open, then closed, and she responded without any kind of hesitation. _He was always so gentle_. A large hand brushed against her cheek, running her hair out of the way and making her smile as she leaned into his hand.

It felt horrible when he pulled away.

"Hello, sleeping beauty." Damon lightly pressed his forehead against hers and braced himself for the slap that was most certainly going to come. Her lips parted slightly, and she let out a quiet sigh as she shook her head at him. _Unexpected, but nicer than a slap._

"Seriously, Damon?" A pause, "Sleeping Beauty?"

"Well, you were both. Sleeping and beautiful." He grinned and she wasn't entirely sure what the hell to say to him. "Bonnie?"

"I'm not sure what to say," She said, still revelling in the feeling of his fingers against her cheek, "I'm still mad at you." _But she wasn't sure what she was mad about. _Damon sighed and shook his head, knowing now would be the time to tell her.

"I didn't mean what it came out like, you know." He whispered, "I meant that... I'd like it better if you didn't know what you were doing."

"Me or any other virgin?" She hissed in reply, and he managed to smile straight back at her.

"Only you." He murmured, "Because I want to be the _only _person who knows _your_ body, and I want _you_ to know every single thing about mine." His fingers slid down her cheek, followed the column of her neck and lightly pressed against her collarbone, "And I want to argue with you, and laugh with you, and fight the world with you... and just _be _with you."

"What?" Bonnie wasn't entirely sure what he was saying, though the words that were in the midst of the jumble were most definitely appealing to her. "Damon... I don't-"

"Look, Bonnie, I'll tell you exactly the same thing I told Mutt: I'm telling you the honest to whatever-deity-you-wish-to-call-upon's truth; _I am in love with you._"

"You told Matt you're in love with him?" She let out a quiet giggle and both of them were soon quaking with laughter.

"Bonnie, don't play that game," He whispered, pressing his lips against her cheek, then her forehead, and then her lips, slowly, carefully and _god so good._ "I love you."

Her lips twitched slightly, even though she was still determined, trying to be mad. His words won her over easily, and his hands were more than capable of catching her as she fell. As they sat there, Damon crouched on the rug beside Bonnie on the sofa, still holding her hand; the temperature in the room began to rise.

"Good." She whispered, pulling him down, into her arms, until he was almost crushing her. _It was a good crush._ "Now, you're going to kiss me, and I'm going to kiss you," He let out a _hmm_, and lazily grinned with his lips only centimetres from hers, "and this is going to be the start of something, right?"

There was a short pause, and her lips were crushed beneath his. As Damon brought his fingers up from her shoulder to pull her closer, Bonnie let out an entirely sexy moan, and Damon took advantage of her open mouth to deepen the kiss tenfold. Their tongues were soon battling for what could only be described as a full-on dictatorship of their kiss, let alone dominance, and her hands were mirroring his as they wound into his hair and pulled, _hard._

"Beautiful, you are." She murmured, rubbing her fingertips along his scalp and making him purr like a kitten.

_Damon-fucking-Salvatore's a pussy! A Fucking Pussy-Cat. What kind of self-respecting man makes that kind of noise?_

_**A whipped one, bitch.**_

Clearly his subconscious went through the same kind of internal turmoil as Bonnie's. As their tongues and bodies tangled tightly, so did their minds. Bonnie had visions of a dark little boy finally breaking free of chains which had glued him to a disintegrating rock which seemed to conceal his soul. She tried reaching out to grab him, as fragments of rock went everywhere, but the noise was too much, and she had to press her head into her hands. The little boy ran to her faster than she could fathom.

"I'm scared, _cara!_" He called over the sound of the explosion, "I haven't seen this in a long time! Please! Don't leave me here!"

"It's okay," Bonnie returned, still holding her hands over her ears, "I'm here! I'll stay here until the end – I'll stay, even when it's all over... and damnit, I'll love you back even though I don't deserve to have you of all people to love me." At the mere mention of love, everything seemed to stop in midair, and it all crashed to the ground in front of Bonnie and Damon's inner-something-or-other, "I love you."

Damon, on the other side, could see for miles, at a meadow which seemed to have no kind of horizon, filled with a peachy, beige sort of existence. The only thing he seemed to recognise was the explosion of flowers, tangles of weeds that needed to be cleared, and the girl who was leaning over and trying to do some of the gardening. She wasn't wearing gloves, and as she reached forward, to begin detangling the next set of brambles, Damon saw her slice her finger. He had to help her, and he ran through the weeds to do just that. He was caught too quickly by the tangles of brambles that were growing around him, however, as though her head was trying to keep him away, as though... this was the Bonnie that didn't believe in him. _He would not give up. He would fight for her, every single time. _

"I'm coming for you, Bonnie! I'll always come!" He called, and the girl looked up, promptly stepping toward him and offering him her hand. He stretched out, through the briar-bush, to reach her, and could barely brush his skin against hers, but it was contact, and that was all they needed.

As Damon touched the girl's hand – Dream Bonnie's Hand, and Bonnie touched upon Damon's inner child, everything began to shake, to dissipate, as the smaller woman pulled away from the dark man.

"That's you?" They murmured simultaneously, and then they were staring, watching the other and waiting for a reaction.

"I meant it," Bonnie whispered, "I love you." She tentatively reached out and ran her fingers down the side of his cheeks, "And I'll stay as long as you want me."

"I'll make it better." Damon returned, "Everything – You and Me, everything I screw up, everything we fight over, that we make up about..." He ran his hand out across her shoulders, down her arm so that he was holding her hand, "We can have our own little universe, Bonnie."

"We can be... us." She murmured back to him, "Heal together?"

"And love each other for a long time after that." _Maybe forever, _Damon mused, _I'd like forever. _

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**A/N: Review?**

**Thanks. **


	6. The Nightwatchman

_Disclaimer: Pssht. No. I don't own it. _

_Okay, so, Mouse555 deserves great amounts of credit for making me smile about the sorer moments of this – to her, I say simply "what's that" ... "That, my friends, is the greatest bongoist in the land."_

_To everyone else: Enjoy. _

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_**The Nightwatchman**_

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Bonnie watched him move around the stove with ease, and for a second, she chewed on her bottom lip, smiling like a crazy person because he had finally done it. _He got it. He understood it. _With a slow ease, and wide eyes, he turned and held out the plate to her.

She was proud of her man, even if he'd never believe her.

"Ta-_da_?" He hedged nervously, chewing on his own lip as he waited for her approval.

"It's not gonna kill me, is it?" She pulled a face and Damon frowned. "I'm only joking, baby." Without further hesitation, she took the plate and picked up a fork to try the pasta in front of her.

_Fuck, it was delicious._ A little overcooked, perhaps, but _delicious _nonetheless.

"You don't like it?" He asked, with more than a trace of disappointment in his voice, as she pushed the plate away after only a couple of bites, and looked up at him expectantly. "I can try to make you something else-" She shook her head and reached her hand out to him.

"Come here?" And immediately, he was sliding around the counter and standing in front of her, settled between her legs as she pulled his lips down to hers. Their kisses were always deep, always honest and always slow, because they knew they had all the time in the world.

As they tangled into one, his fingers slid down the curve of her shoulders, sliding her body into his arms as his hands gripped her tiny waist, his lips moving from hers and down her skin, following the column of her throat to rest at the base of it.

"So, it's _that_ good, huh?" He laughed as he pulled away, and she lightly smacked his shoulder. "Come on, it can't have been bad for a _thirtieth_ try, surely?"

"It's delicious." She pulled him down into the seat beside her and dug into the food. "But you knew that." She smirked, laughing lightly and letting him run his hand down her back as she carried on. "You know, you're not as bad at _this_ as you think."

_It was meant to cover a multitude of things – at being human, at loving her, at letting them be what they were supposed to be, and fixing his mistakes, and just __**trying**__ to get it all right._

"And you're still not finished eating." She glanced down at the plate, still more than half filled, and she sighed just a little bit, staring at it with little more than disdain. "Come on, B." He whispered, brushing his lips against her ear, "I like being able to grab your ass, you know."

"Funny, that." She whispered, letting out a quiet gasp as he brushed his lips against her neck, right on that spot that she liked. "I just don't eat a lot, Damon."

"But," He murmured, still staying low, slow and playing it far too dirtily, "you used to eat a lot more."

"And then the nightmares made it so that the thought of food made me sick-"

"And now you've got me to cut the nightmares." He made a play for the plate and the fork, sitting her down on his lap and lightly squeezed her. "Ooh, so heavy." _Even though she only just weighed a hundred pounds, _"I _like_ it."

She laughed and shook her head, dropping her forehead to his shoulder and smiling down at nothing in particular as he brushed his lips to her neck. His hands slid up her sides, turning her around so that she was leaning back against him and he was able to slide his hand up her shirt and brush his fingertips along her ribcage.

"Damon!" She let out a laugh as it tickled, and he couldn't help but groan as she wriggled in his lap. His fingers traced the line of her breasts, and she groaned, dropping her head back and gasping as he cheekily popped another piece of pasta into her mouth. "Asshole."

"But you swallowed." He resisted the urge to add '_that's what she said'_ because she would probably throw it all back up. "Which is damn good. Means that you're going to eat more." Her lips parted in a half-sigh of defeat, and she held out her hands for the plate once more. "Uh-uh-uh," He teased lightly, holding the fork out of her reach. "Close your eyes."

And she did, just to let him have his way.

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Her hands were small and they liked to cling on to him in the middle of the night. Her nails wouldn't often leave marks, but on the nights when everything got bad and the nightmares came so fast that even his constant presence could not begin to soothe her, there were always little crescent shaped marks left in his skin in the morning, because she clung on and she wouldn't let go.

Bonnie was a fairly heavy sleeper – her subconscious claimed her and pulled her in deeper than most normal people would care to admit, so it was a hard thing for Damon to wake her up in the mornings. Though neither of them had to work; with Damon having a great inheritance in the Salvatore Estate, and Bonnie's grandparents – and mother – having left her more than enough to survive on, they liked to get up, and just do things that suited them.

But it took forever to get them out of bed. Inevitably, Bonnie would be curled up, her head resting heavily on his chest, with one of her legs slung across his hips, pulling him up against her. Damon would generally wake up first, smiling because all he would be able to feel was the soft breath that came from Bonnie's lips as she breathed out across his chest, the cool breeze leaving goosebumps erupting across the skin over his heart.

He would never, ever want to move, and he would want to lie there for the rest of his life. They would have to get up, though, even if it was just to make something to eat so that Bonnie would gain some kind of weight, or that they needed to go to the grocery store – _because no, Damon still didn't get the idea of paying for his food._

"Bonnie?" A light poke in the ribs, and she would snuffle, then attempt to bury herself deeper into his arms. "B, baby, wake the hell up." Another pause and she would shake her head tiredly.

"No. You're comfy." And he would laugh as she pulled the duvet over her shoulders, wriggling heavily against his leg, violently aggravating what could only be termed as 'Damon's-little-problem'. He would growl, flip them over and make such a presence known.

"Am I comfy now?" She would let out a laugh and he would know that she was awake when she punched him in the arm. _It never really hurt, but he liked the smile he got when he pretended._

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It was ten o'clock at night when all of their boundaries were pushed to the limit. Bonnie was leaning her head back against the arm of the sofa, wearing just a pair of panties and one of Damon's shirts, her eyes closed and her breathing shallowing as she started to fall asleep.

He hadn't been able to resist the lure of the black silk panties. He couldn't fight the way he felt when he saw the curve of her chest rising and falling underneath one of _his_ shirts. _She was wearing his clothes. Suck on that one, __**Mutt.**_ Damon lifted her into his lap and kissed her hard as his hands slipped under her clothes, brushing the underside of her breasts as he ran his hands up her ribs and rubbed his thumbs into her skin.

"Damon-" She tried to make a decently coherent sound, but he was rapidly draining her of everything he could. His fingers were all over her, rubbing lightly and making her moan quietly, fingertips sliding across pebbled flesh, twisting and tightening as the coil in her stomach made her groan, moan and grind straight down upon him.

That friction was perfect. With fingertips sliding up and down, back and forth as he pressed his hands down into her panties, he could just _feel _how wet she was. How much she wanted something more than his hand – but they knew that that would have to wait until she was ready – _hell, until he was ready._

"Bonnie-" She was enjoying it so much that her hips were starting to move of her own accord – straight on top of him. "B, you're so-"

He pressed his hips lightly against hers, then moved to push his lips against her collarbone. She let out a shriek, quiet and yet so powerful as she ground down onto him, and he slid a finger inside of her. Her muscles were tight against him, pressing and pushing, making her hips buck as he pressed light circles over her clit and sucked against her collarbone.

"Baby?" He was barely coherent, because damnit, she knew exactly what she was doing, even if she didn't know a technique, even if she didn't know how dangerous and beautiful she was.

"Ungh-" Bonnie's heart was fluttering against her chest, her hands gripping his shoulders and tightening as they slid into his hair, "Damon-"

"Baby, are you close?" He slipped a second finger in, and she let out a real moan – one that shook both of them, her and him, straight to the core. Her panties were in tatters at her hips, and her shirt was hanging open, and Damon had never, ever seen anything more beautiful than the way her head was thrown back, her eyes closed and her body flushed all the way down.

"Damon, please!" His lips pressed against the space between her breasts, then moved along to suckle her left nipple lightly in the manner he hoped she would like. The way her legs tightened against his thighs, the way her muscles tightened against his fingers... _fuck, the way she looked when she came... Bonnie McCullough was a damned goddess._

She was trembling as he gently coaxed her through it, circling her clit lightly, still gently kissing her across every inch of skin he could reach.

"I'm sorry, B." He whispered as she collapsed on top of him, still breathing hard and clutching his shoulders almost painfully, "I shouldn't have sprung that on you."

"Shut up, Damon." She retorted simply, pressing her face into his shoulder and letting out a long groaning sigh, "Just... shut up."

He smirked and she simply smacked him on the shoulder, all of the verbal fight left in her drained by the genuine exhaustion of what had just happened.

"Damn, I know how to get my way, now." He laughed, brushing his nose against her collarbone, "Just make you so fucking... _happy_ you've got no energy." She let out a quiet, growly _huff_, and he laughed again. "I fucking love you, Bonnie."

"You know I feel the same. Even if you are an asshole."

"But I'm your asshole, right _cara?_" And she let out a quiet laugh.

"Always mine, baby." She lifted her head and pressed a very clumsy kiss to the corner of his eye, then the corner of his lips, "I love you."

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Her father came back from a business trip for three days. He came back for three days during which Damon kept a strange kind of distance from Bonnie, even though he was itching to reach out and pull her into his lap at breakfast, and she was itching to walk around in his shirts and his boxers, just because that was how she was comfortable.

He had walked in the door to be greeted by the quiet sigh of his daughter just pulling away from the kiss of a far older man – and yes, in this case, he would have called twenty-one far too old for her, and when Bonnie had sat up to look him in the eye, he had regarded the state of his daughter and ensured there was a silence which rang out long enough for Damon to sit up and look at the intrusion.

"You're Mr. McCullough." He said simply, lightly setting Bonnie at the other end of the couch and shrugging his overshirt back onto his shoulders. He was wearing a T-shirt, but he felt he needed a little bit more coverage for this – _just in case._

"Yes. Yes, I am." Henry McCullough stared Damon down as the younger man straightened up and held out a terrified hand to his elder. He was genuinely shaking as he held his fingers outstretched and watched as Bonnie's father looked him up and down for a long moment. "Who _are_ you?"

"I... uhm, I'm Damon Salvatore, s-sir..." _He genuinely couldn't feel his fingers. Were his hands still shaking? What the hell was going on?_ "B-Bonnie's-" _How was he supposed to quantify this? Were they exclusive? Would she mind being his girlfriend? Or would partner be more appropriate? Why had they not discussed this?_

"He's my everything, daddy." Bonnie's small voice called out from the sofa, and both men whirled around to look at their girl.

Damon's face broke into a smile, even though he was barely keeping the hysterics in, and Bonnie slowly stepped around the sofa, pulling her cardigan around her righter, and smiling as she took her _everything's _hand. Henry, ever the father, even if he wasn't ever-present, eyed the couple suspiciously, trying to remember where he had heard the name 'Damon Salvatore' before.

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the shallow breathing which signified Damon's distress, and the insane way his hand was shaking. He coughed and Bonnie looked between her father and her lover, frowning because this was a little bit scary.

"He'd better prove it," Henry muttered, before reaching out his hand and taking Damon's in a strong grip that frightened him quite a bit.

"I w-will do, sir." And Damon dropped Henry's hand, backed away just a little bit and nodded, "I-if you'll excuse me a m-moment-" But before either Bonnie or Henry could reply, Damon was gone and Henry was frowning at his daughter.

"What was that?"

"I think you just gave him a panic attack." She said softly, "Please, Daddy, be nice."

"When I know he's right for you, I will be." He nodded, and looked at his daughter, who was clearly torn between greeting her father and streaking up the stairs to her... _boyfriend._ Henry McCullough hated that word. "Go." He smiled at her, "I'm here for the weekend."

"Thank you daddy." She squeezed him lightly around the waist and he grinned back at her.

"Don't let him die, Bon."

And she just laughed as she sprinted in the same direction as Damon.

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She found him sitting on the floor in the bedroom they had shared for god-knows-how-long, staring at the carpet with his head in his hands.

"Baby?" She knocked on the doorframe and quirked her eyebrow. "Are you okay?"

When he replied, his voice was muffled and addled, and it sounded like he was crying.

"Do you know what I thought when I saw you on the floor, Bonnie? The day that _misunderstanding_ happened?"

"No?"

"I thought you were _dead_. And I panicked."

"You brought me back to life, Damon." She stepped forward and went to crouch down beside him, but he stilled her with a hand on each thigh, resting his forehead on the bare skin above her knees, "The fact I'm here is proof of that." He smiled against her skin and shook his head, his hair tickling her as she squirmed and tried to pull away.

"That's not what I mean, B." His fingers slid up and down her calves, as though he was anchoring her to the floor in front of him, "I mean... I panicked because I thought I'd lost you." His fingers stilled at the crease in her knees, and he pressed a kiss to the tops of them carefully, "I can't do that again, B. I can't even begin to think about that." Another pause, "I can't fail your dad." A breath, "Or you."

"You won't, baby. You won't fail me." Bonnie spent the next five minutes combing her fingers through Damon's hair, silent, slow and calming as he let out all of his fear and stress into shaking, running his hands across her skin and just knowing she was there.

When he had calmed down enough to look at her, less fear coursing through him as he watched her, she smiled down at him and sat beside him on the floor.

"You know, I can't sleep next to you tonight." He whispered, a little ruefully as he watched the way her eyes shone in the half light. "Your dad would kill me."

"I know." She replied, before turning to him, and kissing him lightly on the temple, "Damon?"

"Yeah?" He glanced at her again as she pressed her hands against her knees and made to stand up.

"Please don't ever think that you've failed me. I don't think you could, even if you tried." He reached for her hand, and waited for the warmth of her fingers to slide into his palm. "Come on, D. Let's go be us, yeah?"

"I like the sound of that." _He would show Henry McCullough exactly how good he was for his daughter. _

_._

It was eleven before the trio were finally in bed. Henry was sleeping in the Master bedroom – which had been left unoccupied for the entire time he had been away, Bonnie in her own bed, and Damon resting uneasily in the guest bedroom.

The arrangement had occurred because Henry wasn't stupid. He had stared Damon down until he had acquiesced to sleeping away from Bonnie, and Bonnie had gone with it anyway, mainly because she thought she could handle a night on her own.

Midnight came and went, and Damon fell into a fitful sleep, waking at every tiny noise, hoping that his girl would be alright without him. Henry slept well, his body needing the rest, but still very, very attuned to the different noises in the household.

"Please-!" The scream woke both men immediately. Damon was out of bed immediately, rolling and landing in a crouch on the floor, reaching out for Bonnie on the other side of the bed before realising that she was not lying next to him. "Not Damon!"

_That was it. Damnit, he was sleeping next to her, father in the house or not. _

Henry had fallen out of his bed as well. His first thought was that the house was on fire, then, as he heard her second shout, he realised that his daughter was in the middle of a nightmare. What he didn't expect, as he pulled his T-shirt back over his head and stumbled out of the doorway, was to almost be thrown to the floor by a dark blur which could only have been Damon, sprinting down the corridor and throwing open the door to Bonnie's bedroom.

Like a cat, the boy launched toward Bonnie's bed, first pulling back the covers, then sitting her up, pulling her into his arms and running his fingers through her hair.

"Please – Don't hurt him!" She was still shrieking, and Damon started to hum as he pressed his lips against her hair, hoping that she would recognise the vibrations as him.

"I'm alright, _cara_." _He hoped Henry wouldn't think he was speaking of another girl, _"I'm here, I've got you, and nothing can hurt you, B." His hand unconsciously started drawing circles on her upper arm, and she whimpered, "Bonnie, _cara mia, _wake up." He ghosted his lips across her forehead and just hoped she hadn't woken her father.

"Damon?" Bonnie's groggy, sore voice echoed through the room and he couldn't help but smile, "Did I-"

"You're alright," He whispered back, "That's all I care about."

"Ha ha. Funny." She turned to bury herself into his arms. "Stay." It wasn't a question. It was never a question.

Damon nodded with his chin against the top of her head and lightly brushed his lips to her forehead. He glanced up to the door and panicked as he saw Henry standing there, frowning at him in the darkness. _At least, he thought it was a frown. _

"B, I'll need a shirt for tomorrow morning," Damon whispered, taking it as his cue to leave, "I'll be back in a bit-"

But as he went to get up, stumbling slightly as he caught his foot in the blanket, he saw Bonnie's father raise his hand and gesture back to the bed, as if to say 'Stay now, we'll talk later'.

"On second thought, B..." He turned back to look at her, lying in bed and watching him, oblivious to her father in the doorway, "I'm not going anywhere." He stepped back, slipping under the covers and pulling her deeper into his arms, "G'night, Bonnie." He pressed his lips to her temple again, and smiled, "I love you."

Henry had been standing in the shadows, just out of sight, as he watched Bonnie's suitor, her protector – her _lover_, clamber into bed beside her. He wasn't sure about it, not at all, and as a father, he was destined to hate it – that was, until he heard the _boy_ whispering those three words. Three words that he surely had not expected. It lifted a weight from his shoulders, and he couldn't help but smile.

Withdrawing from the room, and padding back to the Master bedroom, Henry McCullough couldn't help but smile.

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The next morning was, most definitely, awkward as hell. Bonnie was buried in the bedclothes when Damon woke up, refusing to get out of bed at the same time as him.

"Go make some coffee or something," He laughed lightly as Bonnie groaned tiredly, "I'll shower in a bit, and-"

"I'll bring you something up?" He asked as he pressed his face into her hair, leaning up on his elbow and kissing her ear lightly. She groaned in reply. "Okay, I'll wait until you're downstairs."

He jumped out of bed, sprinted down the corridor and locked himself in the guest bathroom for a good ten minutes, showering, shaving and generally making himself presentable. His hands shook as he pulled on the black polo shirt he had pulled out of the wardrobe and his head started to pound as he realised that he would be spending the better part of breakfast alone with Bonnie's father. _Not for the first time in his second human life, he felt as though he was about to be executed._

As Damon stumbled into the kitchen, cursing the existence of rugs, and their various shaggy exteriors, he was stunned into submission by the genuinely _domestic_ image in front of him. Henry McCullough had a pair of ratty plaid, flannel pyjama bottoms on, and a very old, very faded 'Robert E Lee' high school varsity shirt. _He looked every inch the non-threatening jock. _Matt in eighteen years.

Neither of them spoke as Damon fired up the coffee machine – another thing he had mastered in his quest for humanity, and tried to think of a good opening statement. He didn't even have the chance to open his mouth.

"So, Mr Salvatore, what are your intentions toward my baby girl? What are your prospects for the next five years? Will you be able to provide for her?... Wait, wait, no, scratch that protective bullshit, I don't doubt the Honeycutt boy's already gone over that with you. I want to know three things: Do you love her? Will you hurt her? Will you leave her?"

"The answer's simple sir, Yes, No, and Not even when I die." He smirked, and looked to the floor, murmuring his next word under his breath, "_Again_."

"You know she has..." Henry rolled the words around on his tongue before he spoke, trying to find a phrase as inoffensive as possible, but seeing no other way to say it, "Uhm... problems, son."

"Her _problems, _as you call them, sir, are nothing that she cannot handle – at least with some love, and support. And I intend to offer her both, at least until she doesn't want me any longer. Hell, I'll be around after that, if I have my way."

There was silence in the room, and Damon handed Henry the first cup of freshly brewed coffee. He sipped it quietly, and then set it aside, clasping his hands together and looking up at Damon.

This time, before he could get a word in edgewise, there was a huge explosion of knocking at the kitchen door. Henry raised an eyebrow at Damon, who shrugged in return, before setting his own coffee down at the counter and going straight to the doorway.

"Hi, Mutt." He frowned a little as Matt stepped into the house and ran his hand across the back of his neck awkwardly. _Yay, three's a crowd. _"You're... uh, _here_."

"Yeah, um, sorry, D." He grinned brightly, "I thought I should bring this around straight aw-" There was a quiet cough from the corner, and Matt looked up to see Bonnie's father sitting at the kitchen island, "Oh, man! Henry!" He thrust the bag he had been holding out at Damon, and sprinted to give Henry a man-hug.

_Yeah, Damon didn't feel awkward now. _There was Matt Honeycutt, nearly nineteen and ex- quarterback for the Robert-E-Lee football team, hugging Henry McCullough, who had been a jock himself, as a fly-half on his university Rugby team. They were practically mirrors of each other, just one older than the other, and Damon could see their natural-macho-muscle-bound-jock-bond-thing flying through the air almost perfectly.

When Damon was a Vampire, he never had to worry about being inducted into the fold. He was the Alpha, and he never had to worry about meeting parents, or being exposed to a 'better suited' kind of man. As it was, he knew that he wasn't the 'safe' option. He wasn't the tried and tested, All-American Boy, with blonde hair and perfect teeth. _Well, he had the smile. _But that wasn't the point.

He could see, in the way that Henry and Matt interacted, that Mutt Honeycutt would have been Henry's first choice if he had to marry Bonnie off. Damon could see his reasoning. Matt was the quintessential All-American boy, one that a girl could bring home to _Mom and _Pops, and hell, if Damon were a father – and he wasn't, damnit, just _no _– that would have been exactly the kind of boy he would want to meet as his daughter's first boyfriend. _The safe option_.

Then Bonnie came in, and Damon had to stash the bag faster than he could possibly fathom. He swiftly stuck it into the fridge, as her father and Matt greeted her good morning, and Damon looked across at his girl with a dark blush colouring his features. Her presence calmed him instantly, reminding him that _she chose him_, and that was better than anything.

"Damon," She stepped across the room, narrowly avoiding falling over her own feet, and curled up into his side, stretching up on her toes to kiss what part of him she could reach. In her state, it was only the corner of his mouth, missing his lips in a fairly large capacity, but, as he bent down and kissed her as a _proper_ 'good morning', they definitely did not miss. "Coffee?" She whispered, and Damon nodded at her.

"Take a seat," He whispered, nudging her shoulder lightly, and feeling her smile against his skin as she reluctantly pulled away. As he stretched to pull a mug from the top shelf of the cupboard, Bonnie couldn't help but watch the way his butt looked in those jeans, and Henry couldn't help but watch his daughter watch her man.

She was smiling.

As he pressed the warm mug into her hands and kissed the top of her head, Damon looked up at the rest of the people around the table and smiled at them.

"Do you want breakfast, Mu-ah, Matt?" And the boy quirked his eyebrow back at his quasi-friend. "I'm making bacon and egg." And he glanced at Henry for his approval.

"Sounds good, Damon," Matt acquiesced a few moments later, as Henry nodded at the same time. Damon's eyes lingered on Bonnie's father as he simply stood beside Bonnie. Henry was smiling, and, after a lengthy pause, he nodded, just once, and very slightly, an indication that, in his own, fatherly way, _he approved. _

And that was perfect.

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.

There was absolute silence as Matt left, and Bonnie excused herself on the pretext of going to dry her hair. Once again, the awkward tension settled over the remaining pair, with Damon watching Henry, and vice versa, until there was nothing to do, but break the quiet.

"You know, the last time I saw my daughter, she weighed eighty pounds."

"Yes, sir," Damon nodded, "I've started cooking for both of us."

"She also never smiled."

"It's my mission every day, sir, just to see that."

"What you did last night – is it always like that?"

"She used to wake up in the middle of the night, screaming." Damon shrugged, "It was bad at first, when I slept in the guest room. Then she worked out that it was me stopping the nightmares." He blushed, and looked to the floor, "She likes it when I hum in her ear, sir."

"Call me Henry. Sir makes me feel all... stuffy."

Bonnie chose that moment to return, running her hands through her freshly dried hair and looking between her father, and her _Damon._

"You're both still alive?"

"What did you expect, Bon? I could go to jail for murder, you know." Her father laughed, and to Bonnie's surprise, the bark of laughter which sounded from Damon was strong and confident, not sheepish and afraid. _Good._

"Well, then, thank god for the justice system." And Henry couldn't tell you whether it had been Bonnie or Damon who had said it first.

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_A/N: No, this isn't the end, and neither was the last chapter. Four more, maybe?_

_Please Review, this is my favourite chapter _


	7. Look After You

_**Disclaimer: Well, fuck, no, I don't own this at all. **_

_**Uhm, yeah, Mouse555 knows how this chapter could have turned out, so god, thank her for cleaning up my mess : D**_

_**Enjoy!**_

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_**Look After You**_

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"Well, Bonnie..." Damon looked at her for a long time and ran a hand through his hair, "Why don't you go back to it? You loved it, you miss it..." He smiled at her, "You could go professional – you've got the time, got the funds..."

They were discussing Bonnie's long-abandoned pastime of horse riding. She had started learning when she was eight, and now, she was thinking that it could be a good thing to take back up – something to fill the days as she went along.

"Yeah," She nodded at her seat across the table from him but let out a long sigh, "But you have to consider the fact that the last time I rode a horse, I was in the D-d-d-" And just like that, she was a shaking, terrified wreck, with her hand barely clutching onto the silverware between her fingers, and her lips parted in a frozen _'d'_.

"You were where, Bonnie?" Her father had caught the tail end of the conversation, and Damon couldn't see a way to end this without somebody ending up in a panic attack. There was a short pause, and Bonnie drew in a long breath, her acting skills far more advanced than they had been before her last Theatre class in high school. She squeezed Damon's hand and started to speak again.

"I-in the darkest place I'd been for a while," She finished shakily, offering a small, apologetic kind of smile to Damon, and an 'I'd-prefer-you-dropped-it-now' kind of face to her father. "I just... don't know if I'd want to go back there..."

"I think you should try it, at least, B." Damon said supportively, reaching his hand across the table and running his fingers across the back of hers. "You could regret it if you don't..."

She let out an exaggerated sigh and Damon laughed as he brushed his fingers across hers.

"I guess..." She glanced up at him with a somewhat demon smirk, "But I don't want to go alone..."

"Maybe Damon would go with you?" Henry spoke before Damon could even begin to think of a comeback. "It would be a good experience, wouldn't it?" He stared hard at the boy who so desperately wanted to be with his daughter, and waited for the hint to sink in.

Damon didn't quite realise the weight of Henry McCullough's stare. As a vampire, he was used to the idea that he didn't have to do what he didn't _want_ to do, and could simply compel his way out of it. Unfortunately, as a human, he had no option other than to stare back at Bonnie's father with an open mouth and wide, confused eyes. Bonnie fleetingly wondered if Damon had been a Salmon in a former life, for he was doing an incredible impression of one.

"Yeah, uhm, sure." For he didn't know what else to say.

.

That was how Damon Salvatore ended up standing by the Ferrari, his face pale white, as he watched Bonnie pull on a pair of wellington boots and practically _wade_ into the stable with the biggest black horse in existence. 'Dobber' the nameplate beside the stable door read, but Damon wasn't feeling that kind of jovial nickname at all.

_More like fucking 'Danger'. _Bonnie could get hurt, getting on those horses, and he didn't want that to happen. Yet she was just waltzing in there, holding out a carrot and a cleaning brush and getting stuck in to muck out the four legged fiends.

_ Strangely enough, Damon didn't like horses._

"D, come on!" She appeared in the stable doorway, pulling her hair back into a low ponytail and smiling at him, "I don't bite!"

"But they do!" He gestured at the horse, and was met with a loud _harrumph_ as it stepped heavily on the hay around its hooves. "Fuck, _Cara_, look at it, it doesn't like me!"

"Look, D," Bonnie held out her hand to him, and without question, Damon took it, "It can't hurt you." He raised an eyebrow at her, "These horses have been here since I was eight. These horses know me, and, you know, they trust me." She looked up at him with wide, soulful eyes, and pouted at him, "Don't _you _trust me?"

"Bon-_nie_..." Damon couldn't help but whine, because she knew he trusted her with his life, he was just totally afraid of the big teeth, the hard heels and the strangely bony knees of the creature in front of him. "I just-" He pulled back from her and shrugged, blushing as he found another weakness in his human armour. "I'm scared." He finally acquiesced.

"Don't be," She whispered, before pulling him down to her level with a little tug, and pressed their noses together in what could have been misconstrued as a threatening way. Instead, she was trying her hardest to push a memory into his mind, so that he could see all of this through her eyes.

It was hard to watch the images, but he did.

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_ She was eight and her mother was standing at the doorway to the stable, smiling widely as Bonnie held up the brush. _

"_Like this, mom?" She made a soft pass over the back of the horse, and it whinnied lightly. Her mother's smile was wide, and Bonnie's ended up just as bright and happy. _

"_Here, baby," The older woman handed a carrot to her little girl, and showed her exactly how to feed the horse. Soon Bonnie and her mother were giggling, and laughing, and then Bonnie was older, and she was standing __**alone**__. The stable was quiet, aside from the quiet harrumphing of the horse. _

"_I'm sorry about your mom, B." She wheeled around, her hand flying to her chest in a panic, to see Matt standing in the stableway instead of her mother. "Look, I know you probably don't... but would you like someone to ride with?" He jerked his head softly at the horse, and she cracked a small smile._

"_You don't think I'll be dull? Or Depressing?" She sounded a little bit hurt – more miffed than anything – because the words clearly belonged to Elena, or Meredith, or maybe even Caroline._

"_No, Bonnie," He smiled back at her, attempting to dispel the tenseness that currently owned the atmosphere, "I think you need something to do, and teaching me to ride would be better than anything." The last three words were emphasised with a girly squeal, and she couldn't help but grin._

"_I hate you, Matt Honeybutt." She let out a quiet laugh at her slip, but he never questioned her words. There was a long pause, before she held out her and smiled at him, "Okay, come here." And she was just as quickly showing him how to feed the animal, just like her mother had done. _

_._

"Bonnie?" He pressed quietly, when she refused to open her eyes and look at him, "_Cara-"_

"Don't say anything," She whispered, tears still shining in her eyes, "Just _do _something." There was a short pause, where neither of them moved, "_**Please**__, Damon." _And, at the whimper of his name, she almost collapsed through sheer need and fear. She needed him to make it okay. She _needed_ _**him**_.

And then, when she had half given up hope, his lips were on hers. He was gentle, because he was always gentle when he started kissing Bonnie, and then they were all over each other. His hands knotted into her hair, and he was brushing his lips all over her face.

"_Cara_, listen to me," Each word was punctuated with a kiss, "I will try anything new, for you," His fingers pressed lightly against the side of her cheeks, "I'm scared of these..." Eyeing the closest horse suspiciously, he considered the word he could use to carry on, "_creatures_," He pressed his hands against her shoulders this time, and she bowed her head, "But I'll do it. For you." Her eyes lit up immediately, and she grinned wildly as she flung her arms around him, kissing his cheeks all over.

"You don't know how much this means to me."

"I'm starting to understand." He whispered back, running his fingers through the ends of her now-dishevelled ponytail. It didn't hurt that this was just another thing he could get over on Matt, as well.

"Come on; let's get you on that horse." _Ah, yes,_ Damon thought, _the fun part. _

.

"Her name is _what_?" Damon looked over at Bonnie, who was holding a beautiful grey by the reins, and clucking her tongue as she pressed her hand to the creature's nose.

"Her name is Buffy." _Oh, the fucking irony_. "And she's good for beginners, Mr Salvatore." The woman passed the reins over to a petrified Damon, and told him to walk the horse for a little while.

"C'mon... uh, _Buffy_," Damon lightly lifted his hand and brushed the softest of hands across the animal's nose, "Just an hour and a half, and then we'll never have to see each other again."

He tugged at the reins, and the horse pulled back just as furiously. Damon wasn't even _on _the horse... and she was almost violently unresponsive.

"Bonnie," He tried to call her attention to his predicament, but she was totally distracted by the horse she was holding onto. Within five minutes, Bonnie had mounted her horse-beast, and was quietly trotting around the paddock, reacquainting herself with the art of riding.

"Mr Salvatore, the faster you get _on_ the horse, the faster we can get you riding."

"I'm trying!" He yelped, as Buffy gave a particularly strong yank backwards with her head. Damon went flying three steps forward and groaned as he landed on his knees. "Jesus, am I trying."

"Come on, Damon." Bonnie trotted up to him, leaning down and holding out her hand, in a thoroughly oblivious fashion, "Have a go, for me?" Her hand caught his and their fingers locked quickly, she squeezed tightly before he let go.

"Of course B." _You pussy whipped asshole. You're not even on the horse yet, and you're planning on riding off into the sunset with her. Dude, this horse is __**going **__to kill you! _Even his inner monologue was starting to sound like Mutt. Fucking hell.

"Asshole." He hissed under his breath, only to be startled when the same voice answered from behind him.

"I'm standing right here." And Damon whirled around only to be met with Matt Honeycutt, wearing riding boots and holding a helmet.

"The hell are you doing here?"

"Bonnie called. She said you might need a hand." Damon looked over at his girlfriend – a term which genuinely didn't feel right, there needed to be something stronger there – who was currently not wearing a helmet, her hair blown all over the place by the wind created by her horse cantering around the near-empty paddock.

She was stunning, her eyes wide open, caught by the light of the early morning and the way that the sun's rays were all over her face, brightening her skin and sending highlights all the way through her hair. Her back was straight, and she looked perfectly in control, with fingers tight around the reins, and chest jutting just a little way out. Damon couldn't help but feel as though he was drooling, his mouth dropped open, his eyes slightly unfocussed as he watched his girl become more and more beautiful as he stared. Oblivious to the rest of the world, he vaguely wondered whether he would be able to ride a horse while he had a hard-on like the wood he was currently sporting. Bonnie was a fucking Amazon woman, even though she was tiny. He wanted her, so badly and yet... she seemed to be just out of his reach.

"I don't get it, Mutt," Damon looked across at the fair-haired boy, fighting to pull himself away from her image, "She can ride a fucking horse, like there's no tomorrow... but she won't even ride me."

_Okay, where had that come from?_

"Yeah, Damon, erm, TMI, dude." Matt ducked his head and felt the heat rising in his face. "Seriously. Take that shit up with her."

There was silence for a long moment, and Damon felt his face flush dark, his _problem_ quickly deflating.

"Boys, on the horses. Now." The voice made them both jump out of their skins, and Damon glanced at the riding instructor. She looked stern, and then, as she looked at Bonnie, her face softened. "Who's got her?" They would be riding in pairs, because Bonnie didn't need tuition, and Matt probably only needed some reminders. Damon, on the other hand... incapable was not the word.

"I have, Ma'am." Matt nodded, lightly tugging on the reins of his horse, before finding the mounting block and almost swinging into the saddle like a freaking monkey.

_Damon was suddenly petrified._

"B!" Bonnie's head snapped around, and she was suddenly looking straight at the pair. She smiled at Damon, then, as she passed him, moving toward Matt, she halted the horse and grabbed his shoulder again.

"I love you, Damon. You'll be good at this, I know it." And he relaxed. Even if it was infinitesimally, he relaxed. It was enough to get him onto the horse...

_Well, it was enough for him to get one foot into the stirrups. _

_._

There was a noise like a car backfiring from the parking lot, and even Damon cringed. It was loud, short and enough to startle Buffy into rearing back and throwing Damon to the ground. It would have been easy, if his foot had left the stirrup then, if he had simply fallen and the horse had run amok in the paddock, but no.

His foot was caught, his hand was tangled in the reins... and for a minute, he thought he was going to die. The world was running slow, speeding fast... it was unbelievable. He was terrified.

The pain of being dragged behind a horse was immense. Damon had hit his head on the buckle of the saddle as he had gone down, and he was sure he could taste blood. His hand was going to have deep weals in it, but he had no clue. He could barely remember his name.

And Bonnie had to witness it. He felt sick, and he didn't want her to see this, because he was sure that he was going to get kicked, or stomped on, or something, and he didn't want her to see that. He wanted to protect her from all that – the hurt and the pain, and the blood and the gore that had gone before. And here he was, bringing more and more of it on. He was a horrible person.

.

When he was asked about it later, Matt would say that he had never, ever seen anything more magical than those thirty seconds. As though she had sensed something, Bonnie pulled her horse out of the canter, and turned at breakneck speed.

"Jesus Christ!" She screamed at the sight of Damon, just about able to see the blood on his face, the way his foot was at an odd angle, and suddenly she was flying straight towards him, as though the horse was galloping on a cloud. "Matt, get off your horse." She called back at him, "Just in case!"

And she was in front of him, halfway across the paddock when she executed the perfect dismount, midair, mid sprint, and then she was running. The horse, Buffy, was coming straight at her, and through all of the dust, the hooves and the feet, Damon could see it.

"Bonnie! _Cara, get out of the fucking way!" _But she wasn't going to. No way was she going to leave him on his own.

That was the moment that, for the first time in his life, Damon Salvatore passed out cold.

She concentrated as hard as she could, eyes closed, emanating kindness, calmness, and, above all, that she did not fear the eighteen-hand horse that was cantering toward her. Three feet from her face, the horse's hooves stopped dead in the ground, and slowly, Bonnie took a step forward, daring to touch the animal's nose.

"Ms McCullough! Back away!" But Bonnie was never going to listen. Her hand came up, brushing the velvet feel of the horse's neck, reaching for its reins and taking Damon's hand in hers. She pulled away with blood on her fingers, but she did not care. Her head was focussed on taking his pain, and suddenly Matt was next to her, calm enough to set the horse still, running his hand across the other side of the horse's neck.

"Matt, he's out cold." And the reality of the situation hit her. Damon's blood was all over her fingers, and she didn't know how she would help him. "Matt!" And her voice lost all power. "Matt, please help!" But even Matt couldn't _look_ at the wreck that was Damon. There seemed to be blood everywhere, and he didn't like blood.

Slowly, and biting back tears, Bonnie started to unwind the reins from his hands. For a minute, she knew how he had felt, first having to whip Elena, when they had stepped into the Dark Dimension the first time – then, when he had had to whip _Bonnie_ the second time around. When she had screamed because his concentration had wavered, and the blood that flowed was tinted with sheer agony.

It had been left to Stefan to brush his tongue up the length of Bonnie's spine and heal her wounds, and Damon had left the room in an absolute fury. He had told her, one night, when she was staring at the ceiling, and he was brushing his fingers up her stomach, making her gasp and moan, that it was pure _jealousy_. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Damon?" She ran her fingers across the back of his hand and smiled when she saw him twitch. He was responsive; all she needed to know he was alright. "Baby, please open your eyes."

"Bonnie, can you get his foot out of the stirrup?" She looked across at Matt, who was quietly trying to pull the horse away, "I'm gonna get Ellen to take her," Matt smiled at her again, trying to calm her nerves as fast as possible. "And then we can get him home, and make sure he's okay, yeah?"

"Uhhuh." Bonnie nodded feverishly, and moved forward quickly to get Damon out of the way of the horse. His body, a dead weight in her arms, slumped to the floor, and she tried to sit him up, but he was having none of it. "Damon, wake up, please."

"I don't wanna." He muttered, blinking hard at the blood which had run into his eyes, "B? _Is that you_?" He sounded as though he could barely believe it – as though it was a miracle that she was standing in front of him, "No! Stupid Buffy-the-damn-horse-people-slayer." _And Bonnie was giggling._

"There is so much wrong with you, you know." Matt had heard Damon speak as he crossed behind them, picking up the helmet that had fallen from Damon's head and shaking his own.

"Shut up!" Bonnie hissed through somewhat hysterical laughter, "Damon, baby, what do you mean?"

"Aren't I _dead?" _He managed to sway the words out of his mouth, though his tongue felt a little bit thick, "If I'm not, I need a freakin' hospital." There was a small moment where he ran his tongue all through his mouth, and let out a cough, "Although on the plus side, all of my teeth are still there."

"Okay, Damon," Matt slid his arm around his quasi-friend, "I'm gonna put you in my car, and Bonnie's gonna clean you up," He smiled at Bonnie, who let out a squeak of agreement, stunned into silence by the sheer sight of this. She was half drawn to panicking, and half drawn to sprinting into action, genuinely, physically aching at the sight of somebody who she knew she loved, in so much pain. "And we'll get you checked out, okay?"

"Where is she? _Cara mia?_" His hand reached out behind him as Bonnie followed Matt and the semi-coherent Damon across the paddock. He groaned and whispered against Matt's shoulder, "Where's my Bonnie, Mutt?"

"I'm here, Baby." Her fingers locked with his as his hand got more frantic, and Matt was sure that he heard Damon's sigh of relief as his shoulders sagged. "We've got you."

And just as soon as they were at the truck, Bonnie was wiping away the blood from his hand, where the reins had split his skin, and then tackling the cut on his forehead.

"You really did a number on me, Damon." She said, then, projecting her words to him instead of speaking aloud, _I thought you were dead._

"Don't be silly, _cara. _Not me."

"Yes, you." She pressed her lips to the skin of his temple and he drew away, wincing in pain. "Did I hurt you?" He nodded pathetically, feeling like a small child, "Don't worry," She smiled, "Matt's going to get his drive on, and we'll be seeing a doctor as soon as possible, okay?" She pulled away to get some more cotton wool – they had borrowed it from the riding school, and he whimpered quietly. "D?"

"Don't leave me." _Because he didn't like Doctors. He didn't like hospitals and he was afraid of being left alone. _"Please, _cara." _And he started talking in Italian. She caught a couple of words – her name, Matt's name, a mention of his head hurting... but the rest seemed like a jumble that she couldn't quite understand.

"I'm not going anywhere," She whispered, and damnit, she didn't.

They were at the hospital for four hours; Matt had work, so he left, after offering to call Elena or Stefan, or _someone_ to sit with Bonnie as she waited with Damon in the Emergency Room. He was lucid enough, but the pounding headache that was overtaking his general demeanour meant that he was sour and upset with everything, even the open window was pissing him off.

"Mr Salvatore?" There was a long silence, and he looked up at the doctor slowly, "Come this way."

Reluctantly, he followed the woman, holding his hand out for Bonnie to take as he started off toward the examining room.

Half an hour later, he was dosed up on God-only-knew what kind of painkiller, having been cleared of concussion and his hand bandaged up all across his palm.

"You, Bonnie-Cara-Pretty thing, are sooo lovely." She could barely hold in her laughter as she stood at the curb, watching him talk to the trees as she called Matt for a lift. "What?" And now he was pouting, "I'm serious, you little thing. Who else would want to love me?"

"What?" Her head snapped up as he let out a sigh and blinked wildly, shaking his head to attempt to clear the fog, but only succeeding in sending the world spinning.

"I'm serious. I'm an asshole, incapable of leading a decent, independent life. I don't get the point of a cash register, for god's sake... Why the hell would you want to love me?" And he looked close to tears, "Katherine didn't."

"Don't make me hit you." She whispered to the non-entity which was Katherine, then, as she stepped closer to sit on the wall beside him, "Damon, look at me," He complied with a sad smile, "I think that the meds she gave you are making you crazy." She ran her fingers across his cheeks, "She was a fool. Katherine never appreciated you for the man you are and that makes her a fool in my eyes. She didn't see you in the right light, Damon; she was too busy stealing the focus."

Damon let out a low whimper and opened his arms, begging for some kind of contact. She shifted so that her arms were around his neck, and she was wrapped up in him in moments.

"So, Bonnie," And now he was slurring, because Bonnie was sure that the Doctor had slipped him a sedative too, "Why do _you_ love me?"

She smiled, without even needing to consider the answer. She could talk for hours about his flaws, and how each of them had made his perfections more obvious, or his kindness, or his beauty, his grace, his genuine caring nature, or that even when everybody else wanted to perceive him as an asshole, she could see that he was _trying_. That he wanted to be a _part_ of something, instead of looking in... She could chat about all of that, but she wouldn't. What she knew about how she felt toward him could be summed up in just a few words.

"I love you, Damon," And at this point, his head was on her shoulder, and she could feel that he was fighting to stay awake, "Because that's what I was meant to do."

He let out a very short, very sharp nod, and there was a low groan as his shoulders slumped and he started to fall sideways. Bonnie knew what was going to happen, because he was heavier than she was, and he was stronger than she was, and she couldn't hold up a dead weight like Damon.

They both went careering to the floor, and Bonnie couldn't help but feel as though the moment had been entirely ruined.

.

Bonnie put Damon to bed as soon as Matt got them back to the McCullough household. Her father was relaxing in an armchair, probably reading Finnegan's Wake again, because that was all he ever seemed to do when he was at home for a weekend.

"Bonnie?" Henry looked up quickly as his daughter came back into the living room, "How did he end up in the hospital?" Her father clearly didn't know Damon well enough, because anyone with even the faintest knowledge of Damon Salvatore knew that injury and general calamity followed him everywhere.

She simply sighed and shrugged, deciding not to argue _that _specific point.

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_**A/N: Review, if you please?**_

_**Thankyou **_

_**xx**_


	8. The Heart Asks Pleasure First

_**Disclaimer: Ha, no. You know this by now. I mean come on, this is basically starting citrusy and ending the same way. So No. I do not own this.**_

_**To Mouse555: You are ingenious. You seem to like the way I ramble. You preread and beta and make this into passable nonsense. I flove you, woman.**_

_**Haha, yes. This earns its rating here, so Enjoy. **_

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**The Heart asks Pleasure First**

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She was sitting on the edge of the bed, peeking up at him through her lashes and looking shy and like Bonnie, just being all addictive and beautiful as she rocked back to pull off the knee-socks she was wearing.

"Holy fuck, B." He managed to hiss, running his hand down her back as he scrambled over the bedcovers to look straight at her, "You're not wearing a bra."

"Well, no," She whispered, "You wouldn't be able to do this, if I was," She turned around into his arms and pressed herself against his bare chest. _He wanted that. _

Her hands moved slowly, tracing up and down, over the outline of his abs as he leaned into her touch, as he moved even slower to pull her against him and began to unbutton the blouse she was wearing.

"Baby, don't tease me tonight," He whispered, "please." And his head was pounding because she was so close to him, and she smelled so good, so much like _girl _and fresh linen, "I really can't-"

But her lips were all over his, cutting off his words as she practically jumped on top of him. Everything was an overload, because the feel of her skin on his own was more than incredible, and the taste of her, as she pressed her open mouth lightly against his, was mind-blowing.

He leaned back, pulling her down on top of him and pulling against her panties to get them off. She tugged them away by the bows on the side of her hips, and he groaned because, _hell_ she was wet. She was also grinding right down over him, seemingly desperate for something more than his fingers.

"Do you-" He managed to whisper, "Bonnie, do you want to-"

"Jesus, Damon, will you please just..." Her fingernails scratched at his scalp, and he let out a moan as she shifted her hands to his chest. "_Fuck me."_

Okay, he was either stoned or dreaming, because this was Bonnie he was currently licking, and she wasn't into dominating. She just liked... well, she just liked to _be_ with him, no sex to complicate it all. They were waiting – and then he couldn't help but shift his hips, and he was inside her.

He loved it. Her body was tight, both because she was a virgin, and because she was petite, and he wasn't exactly small. He was more than above average sized, even if he did say so himself. And this girl had skill. Her hips were moving very slowly, as she adjusted, but then she was moaning as he grabbed one of her hips and one of her breasts, twitching his fingers first around her pebbled nipple, before palming her ass to keep her balanced.

"You okay, _cara_?" She simply moaned in reply. "God, you're so tight-" He groaned again as she deliberately clenched her hips around him, rocketing the sensations through his hips and sending him straight out of his mind.

_ He could get used to this. _

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.

She stumbled as she tripped over the rug at the bottom of the stairs, and Henry McCullough couldn't help but laugh as his daughter groaned, grabbed the back of the armchair in front of her and still managed to lose her footing and faceplant on the floor.

"You okay, Bon?" He made her jump out of her skin; unable to believe her father was sitting on the sofa. He was a genuinely quiet man, but this had surprised her nonetheless.

"Yes, Daddy." She nodded, "He's completely out of it." She gestured upstairs and smiled at her father, "I think he'll be out until morning."

"Ah, well, at least he's alright, eh?" She laughed, grinning wildly and nodding her head.

"Would you like coffee?" He shrugged, and Bonnie laughed again, "I'll bring you something."

"Thankyou," Henry smiled at his daughter and watched her pad quietly through to the kitchen. She was a good kid – and she always had been – and by the looks of it, she had found somebody who would look after her just like she deserved.

A moment later, he had made a decision, which was likely to either make, or destroy his image of Damon. And he hoped it was the former. He stepped into the kitchen, following his daughter, and sat down at the kitchen island, where so many important conversations seemed to take place.

"Bonnie?" She glanced up and smiled over her shoulder at his expression.

"You didn't need to come in, Dad, I would have brought it, I promise!" She laughed, but it was cut short by the suddenly-solemn look which spread across his face.

"Honey, just a question..." Bonnie set the coffee mug down in front of him, and joined him on a second stool.

"Yes, Daddy?" And although Bonnie was falsely bright, she was petrified about what her dad was going to ask.

"How did you and Damon... you know... meet?"

And that was it. She couldn't exactly turn around and say "well, he's an ex-300-plus-year-old vampire, and he tried to kill me, and a couple of my friends, but then I sort of harboured a crush on him, and now he's human and not blinded by his addiction to Elena's magical blood, he's seen me for who I really am and we're together," could she? For one thing, it was a lot to say in a single breath. Right now, she was begging for inspiration, for lies, or for _absolutely anything_. She could barely breathe, because she had to rationalise more than three hundred years of what could easily be termed fantasy, into a believable reality.

"Oh," she smiled, toying with the spoon which was sitting in the coffee before her, and half-staring at her own reflection, "Well, at one stage last year, Matt's mom was ill, and I wanted to take her flowers, or at least that sort of thing, but the florist in town was closed, as usual." She paused, "So, I ended up running to the gas station, and..." She cringed just a little bit at this point, because it was starting to sound absolutely ridiculous, and clearly made up, "Well, Damon nearly ran me over when I ran out into the lot."

"What did he do? Stop and yell at you, or something?" Her father was suddenly furious and quite worried about what had been going on while he was away on business - for he was away on business a lot.

"No," Bonnie let out a quiet laugh, "Not at all. I dropped my wallet, and it had my driver's license in it..." There was a short silence, "He ended up coming to the house, and returning it, I asked if he wanted a coffee, and we talked for about three hours. When he left, I got his number, but before I could text him, I was at Elena's place to meet her new boyfriend, and his brother, who'd just moved to town..." She sighed wistfully, "And hell, there he was, standing by the fireplace, looking absolutely incredible, and..." She smiled again, "When he saw me, he dropped his drink on the floor, the glass shattered and everything, crossed the room and said something about fate. Then he kissed me, Daddy. It was so...fairytale. Absolutely ridiculous. But wonderful."

And her father would never agree with her, to call it ridiculous that she had found someone for her. It wasn't ridiculous because she was happy, and smiling, and she was just so _different _to her former self. She was happy, and that was enough for him. Although he couldn't help but wonder whether Damon was very aggressive in their relationship. _He needn't have worried._

.

.

Damon felt as though somebody had stuffed the back end of a rabbit into his mouth. Everything tasted cottony and horrible, and he was sure that his tongue had doubled in size overnight.

_Overnight. Bonnie. Sex. Ohmygod. _

He had been in the hospital, and then, Bonnie had brought him home, and just _jumped _him. How could he have even begun to forget that? _But she wasn't lying next to him now._ Did she have second thoughts in the night? Did she hate it? Was she hurting? He had to apologise, at least.

"Oh, god..." Damon had sat up too fast, and now his head was spinning.

And that was how Bonnie found him, ten minutes later, curled up on their bed, head in his hands and eyes all closed and screwed up so that he didn't have to face the light.

"Damon?" He started, almost jumping from the mattress in surprise, "Are you alright?" And then his arms were around her, tightening his grip so that he could dip his head and press his lips down to hers, very chastely.

"You were incredible." He whispered into her ear, before dropping his head to nibble the side of her neck, "You _are_ so much..." His hands slid to her backside and she gasped.

"What're you- _oh._" It was a low moan, but it was enough to spur him on, trailing his hands up her back and under her shirt... _Until she pulled away._ "Damon!"

"What?" He quirked his eyebrow quickly, and she growled. "You weren't like this last night-"

"I wasn't _in_ here last night." She hissed, knowing that her father was using the bathroom nearest their bedroom, and he would be able to hear her if she spoke at a normal volume, "You were on a sedative, Damon. I didn't want to disturb you-"

"But... b-but Bonnie, you came in here, and you got on top of me, and it was real!" He pouted, scowling at nothing but his pathetic imagination, "Damnit, Bonnie, tell me it was real!" He pleaded.

"Baby," She ran her fingers up and down his forearm, and he hissed at the feeling of her fingers on his skin, "It would be taking advantage of you," She murmured, running her fingers across the neck of his T-shirt. "And I'm not doing that, because you haven't done it to me."

He sighed and nodded brightly, even though he did feel like he was dying a little inside.

"Although, if you're on that," Her fingertips ran up and down his chest as she put her arms around his neck, "I'm sure, when Daddy's gone... I can work something out..."

_That, he liked the sound of. _

.

So it came to no shock that as soon as Henry had left on his next business trip – ten days after he had arrived – Damon was pressing up to Bonnie as she started cooking, he was kissing her neck as she read the paper, tried the crossword...

He was even encroaching lightly on her showers, scaring her as she stepped out of the stall, but wrapping her in a warm towel just so that he could press their bodies together.

"Damon... stop," She giggled, as he pulled her down on top of him at the kitchen table on a Wednesday night, "Let me have some icecream," He laughed, "And then we can make out, or something." She winked, before striding straight to the freezer, opening it up, and being subjected to a box avalanche.

She caught it deftly, even though the plastic bag the box was wrapped in was chilled and slightly slippery. She assumed her dad had bought it, and so shrugged and ducked her head into the bag. What she saw made her heart judder in her chest.

"What's this?" She pulled the box up, and bit her bottom lip innocently. "And why are there condoms in it?"

Damon flushed bright pink, his eyes darting between Bonnie's hands and her face, unable to breathe for fear of making an inappropriate comment.

"Matt told me I'd need them!" He blurted quickly, "If we were going to be..." Then he dropped his voice and blushed, "I-intimate."

"I could kill you, Damon." Bonnie blushed brightly in retaliation, "_We_ could have bought them." She sighed, "_Together,_ Damon." She stared at it, "You're very ridiculous, you know that?" She paused and let out a quiet giggle.

"What? How was I supposed to know that you'd be okay with this?" He gestured at the box in her hands, "I mean okay, they probably wouldn't feel like you were being boned by the IceMan, but _cara,_ I..."

But she glanced up at him and he was cut to silence, her eyes burning bright as she smiled devilishly and bared her teeth more than he would have done stalking his prey. Suddenly, Damon was very, very scared. Reaching her hand into the bag, she pulled out the box and glanced across the front, attempting to hold in her laughter.

"Ooh! Magnum size," As if she hadn't been grinding down on his groin for the past three months, "Are you _really_ this big, D?" She giggled as his face flushed again, "Because if you are, I don't know how I'm going to cope with it all up in my business..."

"Seriously, Bonnie, it'll be okay, if we take it slow," He was really worrying that she was... scared of him. "I promise you-"

"I don't know, Damon..." She frowned for a minute, then, as her hands dropped the box to the table, she grabbed a fistful of her hair and stood in front of him, worrying her lip nervously. He reached up and cupped her cheek with his fingers. She reached her hand up and covered his with her fingers, "What if I don't _want _to take it slow?"

His breath caught in his throat as he breathed out, and all that could be heard in the kitchen was a sound that was suspiciously similar to a dying cat. Bonnie rubbed her hand up and down his back as she took three steps closer, so that her hips were pressed against his fairly obvious _problem_.

"What if," She whispered, her lips trailing up and down the side of his neck and circling to his earlobe, "Hmm," For his hands slipped against her hips and fumbled against the skin beneath the waistband of her panties, "Ha, Damon... what if, I want you hard," She bit down on his earlobe, then turned her attention to his lips, "Fast," She licked her lips and pulled on his shirt, "And very, very, _Damon_."

She pulled back quickly, walking away from the kitchen, and Damon's obvious problem. As she reached the frame of the door leading into the living room, she turned her head, blinked a couple of times and smiled widely.

"And maybe just a little bit rough."

As Damon recollected his senses, he lost sight of her. Then he regained the function in his legs and tore across the kitchen floor after her, almost slipping over in his bare feet. _That_, if he was not mistaken, was an _open_ _invitation_. And he was about to RSVP.

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_Bedrooms, bedrooms, bedrooms. Too many bedrooms and too many places for her to hide._

Damon had sprinted through all of the rooms upstairs, ignoring the master bedroom – _ew, not having sex where her dad slept – _but not finding her anywhere. He stepped back into the bedroom they shared; feeling a little defeated, and determined to get to a shower, so he could release at least _some_ of the pressure going on in his lower half.

He heard the door close before he could even register the movement behind him.

"On your knees, Damon." _Oh, good god._ He swallowed audibly, feeling his mouth watering simply at the tone of her voice. "I said, _on your knees." _And an invisible force pushed at the back of his legs, making them buckle so that he fell to the carpet, though not so hard it would hurt. He heard a low moan and it took him a while to realise that the noise was coming from his mouth.

"Sorry, _cara._" He whispered, as he felt the feather light touch of her hand across the back of his neck. _God, he was hard. _He needed some kind of release or he would literally explode.

"But you're not, are you, Damon?" Her hands gripped his shoulders, and he tried to turn his head to look at her, but she wasn't letting him move at all. "You've teased me _**all**__ week._" She groaned, running a hand through his hair as she spoke, so that could lean his head back into her touch. "Pressing against me, letting me _feel _you, but then," She sighed and let him go, "Just walking away."

There was a long silence, where Damon did not dare move.

"I want to tease _you_, you know," She whispered, and Damon heard the rustle of fabric. "But I really don't know how best to do that..." And then she was standing in front of him.

_Holy fuck_. _Holy motherfucking fucking hell. _She had a set of lingerie on which was... well, there were no words. Dark blue, with red trim to match her hair. Her lips were bright red, and she was wearing stripper heels to bring her up to his height. _Fucking fuck. _To top it off, she was still damn well wearing his shirt, hanging open and making her look so _fucking... _he couldn't even breathe.

Damon was sure there were obscenities streaming from his lips as he fought to reach forward and touch the soft skin of her thighs as she sat down at the end of the bed, rubbing her knees as though she was in a quandary about where to go next. A second later, he realised that she was keeping him bound with her psychic Power, his hands stuck in front of him, pinned to his knees and totally unable to reach forward to touch her. _Tease. _

"Holy shit, B." He muttered, "Do you know what you're doing to me?"

She giggled a little bit, and edged forward to slide her fingers further up her legs. He groaned, still on his knees and still staring.

"You like this?" She whispered, "Seeing me just... _touch_ myself?" She sounded astounded, but then there had been a million times that Damon had proven that he liked watching her touch herself, on the occasions that they had fooled around. He panted out a 'yes', and she giggled again.

And she stood up from the bed, stepped around him neatly and he made to turn around.

"Eyes front, Damon." _Bonnie was petrified, but this seemed to be working. It seemed to be going well. She just had to hold her nerve, and he would... this would be perfect. She fought to keep the slow smile from spreading across her face, and tried to keep her voice low, but strong and commanding. Part of her didn't think that this was going to work, but part of her was done simply 'fooling around'. She wanted him, he wanted her, it should have been easier than this. _

"Yes ma'am." He nodded, and Bonnie was dropped back to reality. She tugged her panties down, then shimmied out of the bra and drew Damon's shirt tighter around her. It covered her backside enough that he wouldn't guess that she was near-naked until it was too late, and then... well, then...

She sat down in front of him again, and her lips curved into a smile as she squeezed her eyes shut and the button on his jeans practically exploded out of the room.

"Shit, Bonnie!" Damon gasped, and Bonnie let out a quick laugh.

"Up, now." She gestured with her hand and he stood up immediately, biting his lip and moving forward immediately as Bonnie raised her hand to beckon him to her. Quickly and quietly, he stepped forward, and Bonnie had her hands at the hem of his shirt, pulling it off so that she could simply lean back and stare at him for a little while.

"My turn," Damon whispered, dropping down to kneel between her knees and push them apart. "_Cara..._" And his hands were on her thighs, thumbs rubbing circles on the insides of her legs. "You call me a tease?" He went to pull his hands away, running his thumbs down towards her knees. A second later, and she had her hands pressed hard against his.

"You are if you pull away."

"You're not wearing panties." He hissed quietly, leaning forward to bite the skin he had just been massaging. "Filthy girl." He coupled the word with the slow movement of his thumb up and down the apex of her legs, and she bit back a moan.

He was always too much for her, even when she wasn't this horny. He was so sweet, so kind, so wonderful, so sarcastic... So _perfect_. His lips pressed to the juncture of her shoulder and her neck, and she hummed in pleasure, before gasping again as his fingers found purchase straight between her legs.

"So _wet." _He pumped his fingers into her slowly, and she was sure she was seeing stars. "You're-" But Bonnie lifted her head to crush his lips with her own. Nothing could ruin this. Nothing could ruin them.

She moaned again as his free hand slipped between their bodies and slowly, somehow coherently, began pulling the shirt from her shoulders. The fabric slipped away easily, and she moaned as his fingertips found her taut nipple, pulling, twisting and plucking her like a fucking six-string guitar.

"Enough." She managed to growl, though her moans and soft whimpers definitely indicated that she wanted more. "Damon, clothes off. Now."

_He liked her demanding. _In half a minute, he had complied, and her hands were on his shoulders as she straddled his knees and pulled him into a searing kiss.

"Are we doing this?" Damon managed to blurt, both impatient and nervous at the same time, his thoughts just exploding out of his mouth as her hand wrapped around him, lightly stroking his length before his hands stilled her.

"Yes." She whispered, "Please, Damon," And his lips moved from her own, down to her neck again.

"Lay down." And now he was being the demanding one. He didn't want to hurt her more than he knew was natural, and he wanted to be able to... well, control at least some of what was going on. He – _just about – _knew what he was doing, so... "Good," And now he sounded patronising, but he didn't care.

His lips fell against her neck again, and she let out a strangled whimper that crossed between begging and incoherency.

"In," She gasped, "Now." And then he pulled back to look straight into her eyes. He shifted her hips a little way, and without even thinking about it, because this, to them, was almost as natural as breathing, he pushed forward and into her. "Woahmygod." Though that was muffled, addled and staccato because it _hurt_, and felt so _good_ and he was _big_. Bigger than... well, just _woah._

He had to bite his lip to stop from moving. Every sensation, from the way her pulse was beating in her chest, to the way she was breathing, whimpering, and lightly pulling at his hair, was magnified tenfold, because he could feel her wrapped around him.

_And then she moved. _

"Holy shit." He was going to explode. _How could she be __**this **__good at something she had never done before? _"Bonnie..." He gasped as she lifted her hips again, "Can you... can _I_-" He wanted to ask her to let him lead, but god, he was just content to feel her for a while.

"How can you-" Bonnie let out a quiet moan as Damon shifted _his _hips into hers, and nothing was balanced anymore.

"Is this okay?" She let out another whimper. "Bonnie, talk to me."

"_Yes_." And they moved together again, "Yes." And he loved that. He loved how she was rubbing her hands across his back, how she drew one knee up and let out a low moan from that.

"I want you to," _Shit, he wasn't going to last if she kept squeezing him. _"Bonnie, I need you to come."

"I'm..." Her head fell back and his lips pressed to her neck, nipping, and sucking, and biting until he knew she would have a mark. "D, if-" And she shifted her hips again, "If you-" another movement, and he was burying his head against her shoulder, "Need to-"

"Please, B-" He would feel guilty. He knew he would feel so bad if she didn't. But it was a lot to take in. She groaned again as he shifted his hips once more. "I can't-"

"Damon-" And she leaned forward, pulling his earlobe between her lips, "Come, baby."

He stilled, groaned and she could feel him inside of her, releasing hard and fast.

"Damon." He pressed his face into her hair as he pulled her close, and whispered an apology. "Baby, it's okay." Her hand found the back of his neck, and she whispered words that she knew he needed to hear. "I love you, baby."

"I'm so sorry." But she wasn't having any of it. "You didn't get any-"

"I got you," She whispered, as Damon pulled the pair of them back up into a semblance of a sitting position, "And that's all I could want." He couldn't form words that would make her understand how happy he was at that sentiment, so he slid his hand into her hair and pressed their lips together.

There were two options Damon could have taken at that moment. Slid his hand between their bodies and get her hot, tight, aroused body so wound up that she fell over the edge and got the same kind of satisfaction he had just had... or – _wait, what the fuck was that noise? _

"Oh, no." Bonnie shook her head into his neck as he asked out loud. "My fucking phone."

"I'll get it." Damon reached in two directions at once. In one way, he reached over to the bedside table and picked up the tiny cellphone in his hand, and in the other, he lifted Bonnie onto his lap and slid his hand between her legs.

"No, Damon-"

"Ah-ah-ah, _Cara_, you've gotta be quiet." And he slipped two fingers inside of her at the same time as pushing the green button on the screen. "Hello?"

Bonnie's head dropped back onto his shoulder and he started to pump his fingers in and out of her, quietly, quickly and determinedly.

"Hey B, listen-" There was a short pause, "Wait, Damon?"

"Yes, Elena," And he punctuated the word with a languid kiss to a shocked Bonnie's shoulder. "What do you want?" Bonnie shifted her hips against his hand and gasped as he hit a different spot, "Kinda busy here."

"Well, first off, I called _Bonnie's _phone, to talk to her, so why didn't _she _answer? And second, are you talking to me while you've got some whore in your lap?" There was a moment of silence, and Damon let out a bark of laughter.

"Yes, right." He smirked, as Bonnie turned her head to look at him, "Number one, Bonnie's a little bit busy right now, she's upstairs in her room, doing god, uh, knows what, with a guy who turned – uh- up earlier." And that slight hesitation was because he could feel her muscles tightening around his fingers – _she was close – _and because he was waiting, hesitating to piss the girl on the other end of the line off even more, "and second, _no,_ she's definitely not a whore."

With that, he leaned forward, nudging Bonnie's cheek with the phone, so that she would turn to kiss him, long, slow and unhurried.

"Not a whore at all." He whispered, flicking her clit lightly as she moaned against her hand, trying to stay quiet as she spasmed around his fingers, gasping for his touch.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Damon. It's not even your house! Have some decorum."

"Ha, tell her that." He laughed, pressing his forehead to Bonnie's shoulder, and kissing away the sheen of sweat that had accumulated on her skin.

"I'm in half a mind to," Elena sounded absolutely furious, "But, I wanted to speak to Bonnie. Can you remember to pass on a message, or what?"

"Yes, Elena." He was thoroughly bored with the conversation now, because Bonnie was on her feet, searching for her knickers and Damon's shirt. "What is it?"

"Tell her to bring herself and whatever somebody she's hiding to the Boarding House soon, because Meredith and Alaric are coming back, and we need to reconnect." There was a pause, "I guess you can come too." She added, almost reluctantly, "But no whores!"

"Fine." And now Bonnie was back, in panties and his shirt, straddling his knees and pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth, "I'll, er, talk to you later."

And before she could respond, he ended the call decisively.

"Fuck, Bonnie," He whispered, between kisses, "This is going to be fun."

.

.

* * *

_**A/N: AHAHAHA! Erm, didja like that? And of course, Damon was messing with Elena's head at the end there. And at the beginning, he is having very vivid hallucinations. Trust me. Sedatives and painkillers CAN do that. **_


End file.
